Toronto’s largest indoor roller skating rink shuts down

Toronto’s very-own retro-inspired indoor roller skating rink has closed down for good, much to the chagrin of the city’s avid skating community.

From the same team behind the city’s epic indoor obstacle course, Pursuit OCR, Rollerpony, Pursuit’s own homage to the roller rinks of yesteryear, unleashed its groovy psychedelia upon the city in early 2023.

Inspired by “Ontario OG’s” like Scooters Roller Palace, The Terrace and, if you can believe it, Ontario Place, the rink took over a cavernous, 34,000 square-foot space next door to Pursuit’s Rexdale location and transformed it into a far-out spot for truly unique nights out and special events.

The rink managed to score itself quite the cult following over its nearly two years in business, thanks, in part to the regular parties held by the likes of The Roller Bashment and Melanin Skate Crew, reawakening skate culture in the city alongside contemporary efforts like SUSO Skate and Union Station’s temporary rink last winter.

The wheel looks to have stopped spinning for good at the rink, though, as the team took to Instagram on Friday, Oct. 25, to announce that the following weekend would be Rollerpony’s last, with the final spin taking place on Sunday night.

There were a number of reasons that ultimately led co-owners Wil Mclean and George Sully to making the choice to shut down the rink, Wil tells blogTO.

“Ultimately, Rollerpony was a really big space for a pretty small — but always growing — community,” he says. “That size of our space was really what made the struggle real.”

While he notes that the roller skating community is a particularly supportive and vibrant one, he also tells blogTO that, with scores of Toronto rollers opting to skate outdoors during the spring, summer and even fall months, Rollerpony could go virtually empty for months at a time.

On top of that, “rents and insurance are higher than ever for new small business and Torontonians have less money in their pockets right now,” he says.

“I joke often that Toronto’s favorite sport is lining up for opening day, but the cities anthem is ‘Oh it’s closing? I loved that place,'” Wil tells blogTO. “It’s a hard city to get by in and its even more difficult to make time for our selves to try new things let alone get back to a place a second time.”

“Unique spaces get outrun by monopolistic bigger companies that can borrow money cheaply [and] can take the losses until the competition disappear,” he adds, “and each time it leaves the city a little more bland and more expensive.”

In its two-year stint, Wil tells blogTO, Rollerpony was a “labour of love, sweat and tears,” with Will regularly spending nights on end sleeping at work just to maintain operations at both the rink and Pursuit OCR.

“With small businesses closing weekly in this current economy, I had to make the decision to close one or lose both,” Wil tells blogTO.

His goal today is to maintain Pursuit OCR, continuing to serve and build the community around that business, while also building NPC, the soon-to-launch e-gaming space that will operate out of Pursuit.

At the end of the day, Wil says, even if Rollerpony was only here for a good time and not a long one, he’s still “incredibly proud of what our team created.”

“For a beautiful moment, we did something really really good for [and] with the people around us,” he tells blogTO. “I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to have been able to serve the community and make some memories with them.”

Rollerpony was located at 75 Westmore Drive.