Photo courtesy of the Village of Lauriuim. The Gipp Arena opened for public skating yesterday. New this year is a season punch card, available for purchase.

LAURIUM – With yesterday’s opening of the public skating session for the winter, the Village of Laurium is now offering season ice skating passes. The $50 passes contain admission for 20 public skating times.

In an effort to help reduce the burden of public skating costs for individuals and families, Village officials say they are excited to offer public skate punch cards this year.

At the regular November Village Council meeting, Trustee Jeff Erickson said the passes are a punch-card style.

“We thought punch cards, because if you give somebody a card with their name on it, or just a season pass, they can hand if off to somebody else,” Erickson said. “With a punch card, you give them x-amount of events. If they don’t use the punch, they lose it. If they hand it somebody else, they still lose that punch. It doesn’t matter to us who uses it.”

Also discussed was a suggested fee of $75 for a season pass. Erickson explained if somebody skated at every session, the cost would total about $120 at a $2 per session offer, so $75 was debated. Subsequently, the cost was reduced, as were the number of punches on the card.

“These punch cards can be purchased at the Village Hall for $50 and they can be utilized during any public skating session,” the village states. “This is a total savings of $10.00 for the 20 sessions. You are allowed to use multiple punches on the punch card per public skating session.”

The price was initially set at $75 for the entire season, said a village official, which would have covered every open skating session for the season. The Village decided that would not be fair to those who did not purchase a pass at the beginning of the season.

“If someone purchased a pass later into the season, they would have had to pay for the times before they bought it,” the village official said, “so, it wouldn’t have had its value.”

The new season pass has 20 available punches, she said.

The Village decided against family passes for this season, the official said.

“We’re going to see how this goes this year,” she said. “This is the only thing we’re doing this year is the 20-punch card for $50.”

At $3 per session, she said, it’s a savings of $10 for the 20 sessions, for a value of $60.

PUBLIC SKATING SCHEDULE

Friday 3-4 p.m. (Adults/Beginners Only)

Friday 6-7:30 p.m.

Saturday 4:45-5:45 p.m.

Sunday 5-8 p.m.

$3 admission fee/ $2 skate rental