SHORELINE, Wash. — Many ice skaters are lacing up their skates for the last time at Shoreline's Highland Ice Arena.
Before Pamela Haines hit the ice on Wednesday, she recalled her days visiting the rink as a kid with a Dorothy Hamill haircut and a hand-me-down figure skater costume.
"When I finished skating I felt like I was just so good," Haines laughed. "I think my favorite thing was called 'Shoot The Duck,' where you would squat down on one leg and the other one was straight out. That was my signature move!"
There will be no more duck shooting, or puck shooting, for that matter, at the rink.
It will close forever on Saturday, Oct. 15.
James and Dorothy Stephens opened the rink in 1962. James was an accomplished skater and future member of the curling hall of fame. Dorothy was a traveling performer in the Ice Capades.
They fell in love and moved to Washington to pursue their passion for creating an ice skating community.
"They built their lives around skating and wanted to share that," Terry Green said.
Terry and her brother Rick Stephens took the arena over from their parents in the 1980s.
Olympians Tara Lipinski, Michelle Kwan, Tonya Harding, Kristi Yamaguchi and Rosalynn Sumners all skated here, but it was the Olympic hopefuls and aspiring NHL stars that were always the heart and soul of the rink.
"You're creating memories for people," Rick said. "I think that's what's most important, that people walk away with a memory of enjoyment."
As Rick and Terry grew older, the business grew colder and was harder to manage.
The pandemic shut them down for months, but what may have been the deepest crack in the ice was the new skating complex opened by the Seattle Kraken just five miles down the road.
"It was getting to be time," Terry said. "Especially when we heard they might be expanding the NHL and putting in a practice facility a little too close."
Now, the once raucous rink sits quietly.
"It's just hard, when you're as old as we are, to put the money in to make the place look like a new NHL facility," said 69-year-old Rick.
Rick and Terry, who taught their own kids to skate at the arena, and worked selling tickets and answering phones on opening day 60 years ago, are left contemplating life without it.
"It's something you've done your whole life and all of a sudden it's gone," Rick said. "It's kind of hard to fathom that."
The siblings reported the arena will be demolished and a 386-unit apartment complex will replace it.
And as Haines took one last lap around the ice, she worried that a bit of her community is melting away.
"It's really sad," Haines said. "We need places like this for the community to meet and we also need the continuity of history, as well."
While the arena's last day open to the public is Saturday, Oct. 15, anyone who has ever been a team member, student, teacher, or coach at Highland is invited to an open house on Oct. 22.