The Last Tour Of An Abandoned Olympic Ice Rink 

I grow up there. I even won a few gold metals there as a figure skater. I will never forget the place that gave me so many great memories.

There's something strangely poetic about abandoned buildings, they're like a piece of the world that broke free of time and decided to stand still, while the rest kept on moving.

I played hockey there a few times. It was quite a unique rink and reminded me of an blimp hanger. They had one of the first Zambonis too.

Please don't let this series disappear! It's such a great idea. I love to travel to places like this. I need more travel locations! Please dont abandon me "abandonment issues"!

I played hockey in Vacaville late 90s/early 2000s and every winter we would have a hockey tournament at this ice rink, San Jose, Oakland & Santa Rosa (Snoopy Ice Rink) too... Lots of great memories and I remember winning MVP Award on my team. It was one of the happiest moments in my childhood. This rink I'll never forget.

A couple hours of cleaning and the rink could have made for a great rollerskating rink or indoor track.

My mother and father met at Iceland. She was an aspiring figure skater with a great coach, Dick Button, and he was a "rink rat" who cleaned the ice with a shovel (before Zambonies). While attending UC Berkeley he playedice hockey for the Cal Bears. A few years later he founded the Northern California Ice Hockey League at Iceland, with four of his friends being players and officials, and me as the waterboy who handed bottles of water to players with clouds of steam coming off their heads. At ten I became a member of Iceland’s Midget Ice Hockey Team, simply called "Berkeley" till we gave the team an actual name before leaving for the 1962 state ice hockey championship in southern California. I came up with the name The Berkeley Burglars, but when our assistant team captain Stu Ship suggested "The Bulldogs" it was taken instead. When WHL officials heard about the crowds paying to watch the Oakland Oaks play the Berkeley Bears at Iceland, they created an ice hockey team for California called the San Francisco Seals, then offered my father a job as Captain of the crew of new WHL officials, his friends and players from Berkeley. Eventually the San Francisco Seals became the Oakland Seals, then the San Jose Sharks, all of which started at Iceland. As a teenager I’ll never forget how magical it was on Friday and Saturday nights, with guys and girls skating around waiting to hear the loudspeaker say "BOYS CHOICE" and how we’d all push each other to ask a girl to skate under the colored lights. With the main lights off, the colored lights on, a blast from a CO2 fire extinguisher blanketing the ice with a thick layer of fog, it was like skating on clouds. I’ve never known another place so magical. Goodbye Iceland. My mother and father will miss you. Me and my teammates will miss you. And everyone else who had the pleasure of skating at Berkeley's greatest monument to wholesome recreation, good clean fun, personal growth, and a feeling of community. We all bid you a fond, farewell. I’m sorry you came to this sad state of affairs. You deserved better.

I was raised there it's a amazing environment to ice skate I became good at it I'm making photos of some of my stomping grounds 80s so pleasing to see it again. appreciate the owner keeping that spirit with people became attached to the grounds and many gooooood memories kept and shared.thanks 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉hi Iceland imbedded into my heart ❤and we got history every weekend I was there after school days joy I'm telling joy in this place.Forever🎉 celebrating your open days to the community family and first time people getting use to entering and ice skating for real.peace Iceland glad your doors were open.🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

This was my home skating rink so many memories early morning before school practices then back at it again after school I spent so much time in this building

Trace, thanks for the great videos, keep doing what your doing and i hope to see more in the future

This is Amazing keep them coming. Great job.

yet another great video.

It's so hard now days for recreational businesses to stay a float. This is the result of many factors, but it's truly a sad situation. No wonder so many of today's youths are loitering in parking lots (or worse).

What a lovely place!

It took me a second to get my head around this :)

i was there

Dammit I live in Berkeley at the moment and I wish I would have met you Trace, You seem like an amesome dude!

part of the reason that i hate where i live is because there is so much retail. there is literally nothing for anyone to do but shop

Laugh out Loud I've been in there

You should do Murphy's Ranch. Its a cool and kinda dark part of history.

If I could do something, I would reprint everything and fix everything up and try to make it look new without changing the look of it to much of the original, to give it the old feels it once had.

sECOND!!!

when is the next abandonment stories?

I hate seeing this stuff. Being a hockey player my whole life,this makes me sad

Come to Detroit !

I played hockey there as a kid... sad its gone. They shut it down because the ice or a chemical they used started giving off toxins. I wish they renovated it so there could be another place to play. Oakland Ice Center in down town Oakland is nice, but there are not enough ice time slots available.

In 70s..seemed barely used ice rink.. Strangely

you might as well say "if you want to see more depressing videos, click on the link now"

Ice rink in California?!?! Obviously it's gonna get abandoned

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I wanted to learn more so I googled Iceland. Did you know the place is its own country? they really should have mentioned that in the video.

1st comment

Did you know that america has more empty houses then it does homeless people? And yet it is illegal to squat in any of them..(I think that is the word lol) Basically what I am trying to say is there is still a big problem with homelessness in the USA.