Downtown Pittsburgh ice rink ranks No. 1 in North America
Pittsburgh’s iconic ice rink is considered the most beautiful ice rink in North America — beating out the famed Rink at Rockefeller Center, according to a hotel chain.
The ranking was released by Premier Inn, a United Kingdom hotel chain, which compiled a list of 56 ice rinks from around the globe using desk research. A series of images of the different rinks were shown to a sample of 200 people, according to the study’s methodology.
Eye-tracking software was used to track the average length of time it took for people to first look at the rinks and the average time spent looking at the image.
The UPMC Rink at PPG Place achieved a total score of 70.9 out of 100, with the average participant viewing the image for 2.5 seconds.
“The rinks were then ranked based on their scores to reveal which were the most eye-catching and, ultimately, the most beautiful overall,” Premier Inn wrote.
Pittsburgh’s rink ranked ninth in the world, and the Rockefeller rink ranked 14th in the world with a score of 68 out of 100. The ice rink at PPG Place is 67% larger than the Rockefeller ice rink, according to Premier Inn.
The top 20 most beautiful ice rinks in the world, according to the list, are:
1. Kö on Ice Rink in Düsseldorf, Germany
2. Wiener Eistraum in Vienna, Austria
3. George Street Ice Rink with Emirates in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
4. Chesa al Parc Natural Ice Rink in St. Moritz, Switzerland
5. Heinzels Wintermärchen Ice Rink in Cologne, Germany
6. Bondi Festival Ice Rink in Sydney, Australia
7. Grand Hyatt Seoul Ice Rink in Seoul, South Korea
8. Royal Pavilion Ice Rink in Brighton, United Kingdom
9. The UPMC Rink at PPG Place
10. GATE M Dream Center Ice Rink in Shanghai, China
11. Place D’Youville Rink in Quebec City, Canada
12. Nathan Phillips Square Rink in Toronto, Canada
13. Skate at Somerset House in London, United Kingdom
14. The Rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City
15. Amsterdam Museumplein Ice Rink in Amsterdam, Netherlands
16. Curry Village Ice Skating Rink in Yosemite Valley
17. Plaza Athénée Ice Rink in Paris, France
18. The Rink at Campus Martius Park in Detroit
19. Frankenmuth Ice Rink in Michigan
20. Yorkshire’s Winter Wonderland Ice Rink in York, United Kingdom
Megan Swift is a TribLive reporter covering trending news in Western Pennsylvania. A Murrysville native, she joined the Trib full time in 2023 after serving as editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian at Penn State. She previously worked as a Jim Borden Scholarship intern at the Trib for three summers. She can be reached at mswift@triblive.com.
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