Bridgewater Sports Arena

I can 't believe BSA is still going and it 's pretty much been 30 years at this point since it first opened. I worked here for 5 of those 30 years and I believe it was either the first or second day that BSA opened that I started. I worked here as an arcade attendant, skate guard and even helped out with parties. If I could tell you some of the crazy stories and secrets, I would, but I don 't want to put them in this review. I ended up leaving when they wanted me to start helping with construction, something I had no experience doing nor was I looking to start doing. The good news is I made many friends from here, that I still see or talk to today. Including my very first hockey coach and one of my old (and first) managers! My best experiences there were with the hockey leagues, in particular the youth leagues. They are ran very well and continue to be ran well from what I can gather. There is a lot of focus on these leagues because that is where the money is, so the kids get priority on ice time as well as a lot of focus on improvements of skills on the ice. I did spend 10 years there in the adult leagues, some times were good and some times were bad. We eventually moved our team when games were getting too late and the league director kept giving us a schedule 3 months at a time instead of a full season schedule, which is what we needed. From what I hear, they addressed this by now splitting up the Winter Season and you are getting less games for a full season but an extra season out of it. The one thing we did enjoy was the number of games and double elimination playoffs. The last league director who we dealt with, Brian, was very fair and a good guy. He moved on. I 'm not sure who is the director now, but last I heard it was the same one who ran Flemington a few years ago and he was fairly good as well. So you are probably getting a fairly organized adult league. Our biggest issues were with the abusive referees and the horrible ice. We literally had referees that no other rink wanted (they were banned from those rinks and one was even a college level ref that was also banned from doing Princeton games) that called penalties on one of our players because He was black and didn 't belong on the ice . This infuriated us and when we brought it up to BSA management, they shrugged their shoulders and told us to talk to USA Hockey about this. Our other issues were with the ice. We loved the blue rink but the red rink would fall apart every 2-3 years and would need to be re-done as such. They could never figure this out. A few of us broke skates and skate blades because the ice actually got down to the surface. It was pretty bad (This also happened to me while public skating). The small rink (what was known as the orange rink) was fantastic. I always enjoyed some personal time on there, be it for myself and a friend or with my teammates. I did like the pro-shop there because often times, I 'd find a stick or something else I needed that other local shops would not have. Plus their skate sharpening was always done right for me. I 'd often go out of the way for this and only come to BSA. Arcades remain outdated last time I was there. I was surprised to see so many arcades still there from the 90s and also surprised to see how many were out of order. Most of these used to be easily fixable back in the day. I never did experience the laser tag but I heard it 's pretty good, so give this a shot if you have a party there. As for the food, I wasn 't a fan of Villa Pizza or whatever they call it now. Most of the food was sitting out there for a while, though if you timed it just right, you may have gotten a nice and greasy re-heated pizza that would taste fresh. Perhaps the chocolate cookies are still fresh, that was about my extent of what I 'd eat at that place. If you were going public skating or doing open hockey, I 'd strongly suggest that you call ahead of time and just make sure you know the correct times for each of these! Also, for public skating

The perfect place for skating without crowds as long as you go when kids are in school. That means most weekdays from 10 to 12, when I share the rink with no more than 15 skaters, sometimes only two or three!

It used to be a good place for families. I sent my daughter to learn how to skate there. They had a decent facility and friendly staff, despite a very mediocre (not very smart and user friendly) website. Public skating was reasonably priced at $10, but the kids currently taking the Learn to Skate lessons got to skate for free, as they reasonably should, as that is a time for them to improve. Then this place suddenly became a money grabber. Without much of an announcement on the website or anywhere else, they increased public skating by 20%, plus the kids no longer can skate for free. Their practice time has been reduced to a yet undetermined 30 minutes before or after the actual class time. This is very budget unfriendly as well as time unfriendly. I get it that these are in their economic interests, but they can do better to maximize the revenue without alienating the parents. They should restore the free skating for students perk, or at a minimum offer various discount plans to keep existing students and parents, while also a volume discount for the one timers (don't you want to see their return?)Then hire a better web designer to better handle communication and enrollment. This will save them money in the long run.

The rink was in a decent condition but the owner was not nice to the General manager of our team.

Best place for public ice skating. We go there on most public holidays, best family time spend.