Several people have responded to the recent column and blog on ice skating back in the 1950s and 1960s at Hasenfuss Field, located at the start of Midline Road just outside the Rockton section of Amsterdam.

John Szkaradek recalled that ice hockey was played there, with special memories of Murray’s Oilers, a team funded by local service station operator Bob “Whitey” Murray.

Szkaradek and others have pointed out there were other skating locations around Amsterdam, most notably in Fort Johnson where speed skating took place. There was a speed skating club called Fort Johnson AC. One of the top skaters was Ray Knapik of Amsterdam who went on to be a school teacher.

Liz Dye Russo of Johnstown grew up in Hagaman in the 1950s and 1960s and remembers skating in Hagaman on the Chuctanunda Creek.

“We could hear the booming ice and see the cracks,” Russo wrote. “Mathias store played music and you could get soda, hot cocoa and candy. I would go there after school or my dad would drop me off after supper and then pick me up later. Sometimes I was the only one skating as it was so cold, but I loved it!

"In the early 1950s they had an ice show there. Wolfie McKnight and his daughter were very good skaters and dressed up and did skate dancing together. They also had clowns skating and coming out of a burning house on the ice, which was scary, but exciting! Everyone would stand on the bridge to watch the show. We had races also. The Hagaman boys were pretty fast on their racing skates!”

“A really special place to skate was at Fort Johnson -sort of date skating! It was up on the hill with the parking lot at the bottom of the hill, making it more private than Amsterdam or Hagaman. There was a warming house, refreshments and music.”

JBC responded to the story on skating at Hasenfuss and said there also was an ice rink at the former Guy Park Avenue School in Amsterdam, now the Walter Elwood Museum. The school basement was used as a warming hut.