Today, Bosanova Roller Skating Center in Colorado Springs closed.

My family weeps silently inside. We feel we have lost a loved one.

I believe Bosanova has been open for more than 30 (or perhaps 40)
years.

My love of this little roller rink with a real maple floor and the
family that owned it began over 10 years ago.

My first child was still in a stroller and I had just purchased "The
Pic," an attachment Roller Stop (now The Pic Skate Company) had
invented that attached to any in-line skate. I attached "The Pic" to
my original Rollerblades (3 wheels in fact!) and wanted to try them
in a roller rink for safety sake since I was pretty nervous trying
moves I did on ice in rough Colorado parking lots.

I asked Bosanova's owners if I could perhaps push my stroller in the
rink, and the answer was yes!

So off to Bosanova I went and experimented with in-line figure
skating.

Then, to my joy, the Pic Skate was invented and in 1995 or 1996,
around the birth of my 2nd child, I showed up at on weekends wearing
the Pic Skate and trying more figure skating moves.

The rink manager was so intrigued with my Pic Skates that he asked me
to help during learn to skate classes. It was an entirely new thing
for me, an ice skating coach, to teach roller skating, but I learned
so much!

As time went on, I wrote HOW TO JUMP AND SPIN ON IN-LINE SKATES.
Everything in the book and how to do it was "figured out" while I
skated at Bosanova.

My entire family, excluding my son, wears Pic Skates now, and have
skated at Bosanova weekly. My daughters both are just getting spins
and simple jumps down in Pic Skates. We now will have to go to a
roller rink with a wood floor that is in Pueblo, Colorado to continue
experimenting on our skates.

I know my children will always remember their childhood of skating,
being pushed in the stroller, and being a part of the Bosanova Roller
Skating Center.

Yes, we are sad today.

JO ANN