Roller rink has
new lease on life

By SARAH KOENIG

MATAMORAS — Ask a kid what there is to do in their town for fun, and you’re likely to hear the same answer from coast to coast: “Nothing.”

But when the “Big Wheel” roller rink in Matamoras closed its doors a couple of months ago, a lot of teens and tweens in Pike County were left with “nothing.”

And at least one local resident, 16-year old Christa Mabee from Milford, was driven to desperate measures.

“There wasn’t anything to do,” she said. “I just sat at home. I was so bored I actually went out and got a job.”

Mabee, who’s been roller-blading for six years, said that she would often go to the rink on Friday and Saturday, and that she was very upset when she heard it had been closed.

However, for the adolescents of Pike County, and all those who just love to skate, the shutting down of the roller rink was only a transitional state.

The rink is under new ownership, area businessmen Stephen Lanza and Troy Sayles, with a new name (“Gotta Roll”) and “it’s going to be back and better than ever,” by the end of the month, according to Lanza.

“We’ve gutted the building,” he said. “We put in all new carpets—new equipment for the concession stand. We bought brand new skates. We’ve cleaned everything. An example I always use to describe the condition of the rink before we bought it is that, since I started coming here six years ago, one of the bathroom stalls has never had a door.”

The improvements didn’t stop at the bathrooms. A $40,000 state-of-the-art sound and lighting system is the crown jewel of the renovations—a change that many past patrons to the rink believed was long overdue.

“Nothing had been changed in years,” Lanza said. “When I spoke to a woman about the new lighting system she said to me, ‘Oh, so we’re getting out of the 1970s?’ I got a lot of that.”

With such a large investment, Lanza and Sayles will certainly be taking measures to make sure the rink stays in such good shape.

“One of the things we’re thinking of,” Lanza said, “is implementing a chaperone program, where a parent will essentially monitor things and look out for problems. Generally, we feel that the presence of an adult will nip potential problems in the bud.”

And according to Troy Sayles, who’s been working with the Westfall Police Department on security for the building, the rink has a reputation for problems.

“The police have spent a lot of time up here in the last nine years, making arrests for drugs, rioting, things like that. And we feel that working with them, and making them feel welcome inside the building, will help prevent some of those things.”

As skating enthusiasts, Stephen Lanza and Troy Sayles are big believers in providing kids in the area with fun, healthy ways to spend their time.

“I ran hockey leagues for two years,” Lanza said, “and Troy ran them last year.”

Troy Sayles puts it more to the point.

“We seem to have a habit of continuously finding things for kids to do,” he said. “I guess if we look back at it, that’s what we’ve dedicated our whole lives to doing.”