Amstelveen has received the paperwork for this winter’s natural ice rink on the north bank of the Poel, complete with a stall selling hot drinks and snacks to skaters, known in Dutch as a koek-en-zopie, according to a notice in the municipal gazette published on 5 November.
The notice covers 14 December 2026 to 5 March 2027 at the Noordelijke Poeloever, a field behind the town hall that is flooded so it can freeze into a shallow landijsbaan (land ice rink).
The rink is run by volunteers from the Amstelveen skating club De Poelster, which decides each winter whether the ice is safe.
Short seasons, and one that never started
Whether anyone skates depends entirely on the frost.
Last January the rink opened only briefly: snow, thaw and rain had turned the ice to slush, and skaters could use only the firmer edges after a night of hard frost.
In February 2021, when the ice was good, the club kept the rink shut because coronavirus rules could not be enforced on an open, free rink that would draw big crowds.
Fewer ice days every decade
Sixty years ago the Netherlands averaged about eleven ice days a year, days when it stays below zero all day, and now it averages about three.
The weather station at De Bilt went a record 762 days without a single one in 2023 and 2024.
The skating federation KNSB has said that natural ice is perhaps the most beautiful thing there is, because it is how many children first try skating.
Sources: amstelveenz.nl, amstelveenz.nl, amstelveensnieuwsblad.nl, nos.nl