Construction pushes opening to 2026
The Roy Raley Ice Rink will not open as scheduled this year and may be unable to open for the 2025 season.
“The joy and active recreation opportunity the ice rink brings to the community over the holidays is pretty special, and we are very disappointed to see the ice rink project delayed,” Parks and Recreation Director Liam Hughes said.
Parks and Recreation typically opens the ice rink for its winter season immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday. This year’s delay stems from unforeseen issues with the reconstruction phase of the Roy Raley Park Rehabilitation project.
The ice rink sits atop the former Pendleton Natatorium, a swimming pool that was filled in and capped with concrete in the 1960s. That concrete, used for basketball courts in the summer and as the base of the ice rink in the winter, began to fail, prompting the launch of the rehabilitation project in 2023.
In winter 2024, Parks and Recreation solicited and selected a design/build contractor to reconstruct a new ice rink, in place of the existing failing facility. At the end of the 2025 ice rink season, the City demolished the old rink, excavated the old concrete pad and prepped the site in anticipation for the contractor to come in and begin construction.
New construction was scheduled to begin in summer 2025; however, the contractor experienced significant delays in securing the correct bonds for a public project of this size, and the reconstruction work has not yet begun. Once the contractor’s work is complete, the new concrete will require an additional 30 days to cure before it can be frozen to build ice. As a result, both Pendleton Parks and Recreation and the Pendleton Ice Sports Booster Club, which operates the Pendleton hockey program, have adjusted their seasonal schedules.
“The best-case scenario at this time will be a significant delay in opening the rink, but there is a strong possibility the rink will be unable to open at all this season, Hughes said. “I want to thank the Pendleton Ice Sports Booster club for their support of the project, and I am optimistic that the finished product will be worth the wait and a significant improvement over what we had before.”
Updates about the Roy Raley Ice Rink project are posted at https://pendletonprojects.com/node/200 . Information about hours and operations at the rink will be posted at https://www.pendletonor.gov/parksrec/page/roy-raley-ice-rink when more information is available.
- Nov. 21, 2025