Many skating experts believe and say that a new ice rink in Southampton would help to discover more talent like Torvill and Dean, the Olympic heroes.

Hundreds of campaigners who love ice skating marched through the city on the 20th anniversary of the shutting down of the Top Rank ice skating rink in Southampton. Alan Abretti, the former British champion is backing the campaigners in support of a new ice rink in the city. Alan is the ice operations director at Cousins Entertainment. He, along with Robin Cousins, the 1980 Olympic Gold medalist set up temporary ice rinks around the globe. They also set up ice skating rinks during winter in Southampton and Winchester.

They are expecting around 50,000 people to turn up at the temporary ice rink during Christmas. This figure is more than some of the permanent ice rinks get. This shows the huge demand for an ice skating rink in Southampton City.

Alan said that ice skating as a sport needs a lot of support. He believes that a lot needs to be done to promote the sport and provide the ice skaters with better facility. If we have better ice rinks, we can see more ice skating champions like Dean and Torvill.