The Swindon Link Centre's ice rink has just one session that is suitably scheduled for adult skating. This session also has two dance intervals. If the session is cancelled not only are adults deprived of their opportunity to skate for that week but also the ice dancers lose their opportunity to practice ice dance.
Fortunately, it is rare that there is a technical reason to close the rink. But it has happened before that the only public session that has two dance intervals on Wednesday evenings has been lost to enable a ice hockey match to take place.
The management could and I think should have arranged for the match to take place during time that is allocated to ice hockey. Instead they have taken the only public session that adults and ice dancers have.
There is time allocated to ice hockey every single day of the week both in the evenings and during the day at weekends. so I cannot see any reason why the match could not have been arranged during that time.
There has been no published warning of this cancellation and many ice dance skaters come a long distance to skate at Swindon Ice rink. Although there is a large number of skaters who come every week, some do not. These skaters are likely to come and be doubly disappointed; losing both their opportunity to skate and the cost of travelling to the ice rink.