One of the most visited places in Skopje in the 70s and 80s, the skating rink near Kale, today stands ruined and abandoned.

The place where recreationalists once came, figure skating was trained and hockey was played, is now non-functional.

The skating rink under the Kale fortress, at the beginning of the 70s of the last century, also hosted a ice hockey world championship C-Pool. The Macedonian teams successfully competed in the Yugoslav league, and the representative performances filled the stands.

According to some data and reports, between 3,000 and 5,000 recreationists came to the ice rink on weekends. The people of Skopje remember with nostalgia the skating rink where they spent good times.

Our celebrated hockey player Gjorgji “Jirko” Grchev, the legend of Macedonian hockey, has fond memories of the past and bitterness about the current situation. In the conversation with him, we reminisced about how hockey worked at that time, what successes we had and what needs to be done to bring back the good times.

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