Ice Skating in the Lehigh Valley: Public Skate Rinks for 2026–27

Quick answer: Public ice skating in the Lehigh Valley, checked October 22, 2026, is two Bethlehem rinks. Steel Ice Center is the indoor twin-sheet rink at 320 East 1st Street on the South Side: $15 for ages 11 and older, $10 for ages 10 and under, $5 skate rental. It does not print a standing weekly session grid. Use its live calendar. The Earl E. Schaffer Bethlehem Municipal Ice Rink is the outdoor rink at 345 Illick's Mill Road. The city calls it the Lehigh Valley's only outdoor Olympic-sized rink. Public sessions begin Friday, November 13. Youth and seniors are $8, adults $9, skate rental $4. The season is mid October through mid March, weather permitting. The rink page still showed a “CLOSED FOR THE SEASON” banner on the day this was checked.

Checked October 22, 2026 on Steel Ice Center’s public skating page, the Steel Ice Center homepage, the plan-your-visit page, the City of Bethlehem rink page, and the city’s March 16, 2026 reopen note. No other official 2026–27 public rink page, with an address, dates, and prices, turned up for Allentown or Easton.

The Two Public Rinks, Side by Side

	Steel Ice Center	Bethlehem Municipal Ice Rink
Setting	Indoor, twin sheet	Outdoor
Address	320 East 1st Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015	345 Illick's Mill Road, Bethlehem
Neighborhood	South Side Historic District, in the rink’s own words	City page does not name one
Phone	610-625-4774, front desk	610-865-7000, the city phone on the page
Season	Public skating page does not print an open or close date	Mid October through mid March, weather permitting
Public skate start	Calendar, not a fixed grid	Friday, November 13
Adult price	$15, ages 11 and older	$9, ages 18–61
Youth price	$10, ages 10 and under	$8, 17 and under, and seniors 62 and older
Skate rental	$5	$4, tax included

OpenStreetMap, checked the same day, places the outdoor rink at ZIP 18017 in the Monocacy Hills area and puts the two street addresses about 1.9 miles apart in a straight line. That figure is not a drive time, and the city page itself does not print a ZIP. The map record is the Illick’s Mill Road search.

Steel Ice Center in Bethlehem

Steel Ice Center sits at 320 East 1st Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015. The public skating page and the homepage both print the front desk at 610-625-4774. The homepage places the building in Bethlehem’s South Side Historic District and calls the facility a twin-sheet rink. It names the Lehigh University men’s ice hockey team, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms Youth Developmental League, Penguin Figure Skating Club, and the Polar Bears of Special Hockey of the Lehigh Valley as programs based there. It also says the rink is steps from the SteelStacks campus, ArtsQuest, and The Steel Pub, with access from Routes 22 and 78 via 378 and 412. The plan-your-visit page says parking on site is free.

Those lines are the rink’s description. This guide does not add an opening year, an ice-sheet size in feet, or a pub-inside-the-building claim, because the pages checked on October 22, 2026 do not state them. “Premier” on the homepage is the rink’s own marketing line.

Public skating admission on the public skating page:

• Adult, ages 11 and older: $15
• Child, ages 10 and under: $10
• Skate rental, all ages: $5

The same numbers are repeated lower on the page as $15.00, $10.00, and $5.00. The page says no experience is necessary and that rentals are available. It also says learn-to-skate sessions run year round and that the rink will pro-rate if you join in the middle of a session. Gift certificates can be ordered online through the rink’s Dash account. The page does not print Dash prices here.

Session times are not a weekly template on this page. It says all times are subject to change and points to a live calendar that is pre-filtered for public skating. If the calendar is empty, the page tells you to set a start and end date, choose an event type, and run the search. The only clock times printed in the article, checked October 22, 2026, are two specials:

• Saturday, October 24, 2026, 1:30–3:00 p.m. Free skate rentals for children ages 10 and under in costume. Regular admission otherwise.
• Saturday, October 31, 2026, 1:30–3:00 p.m. Same costume-rental offer.

The page says regular public skating admission applies unless a promotion says otherwise, and that promotions can have their own rules. Do not treat those two Halloween afternoons as the normal weekend session. If a blog, a map listing, or an old memory gives you 11:30 a.m. or an 8 p.m. Friday skate, check the calendar before you drive. This page did not print those times on October 22, 2026.

The rink runs much more than public skate: learn-to-skate, figure skating, hockey leagues, camps, and ice rental are all on the site. A public session can be cancelled when the ice is booked. The calendar is the check, and the front desk number is 610-625-4774.

For the rest of a South Side day, the rink’s “steps from SteelStacks” line is the useful one. Our SteelStacks Bethlehem guide and South Side Bethlehem guide cover the campus and the neighborhood. Dinner after skating is a separate choice: start with the Bethlehem restaurants directory rather than guessing a walk from the lobby. The Orchid Steakhouse is one listing already used for South Side nights in our Bethlehem guide.

Bethlehem’s Outdoor Municipal Rink

The Earl E. Schaffer Bethlehem Municipal Ice Rink is the outdoor sheet. The city page calls it the Lehigh Valley’s only outdoor Olympic-sized rink and puts it at 345 Illick's Mill Road. It does not print a ZIP on that page. The city phone in the page footer is 610-865-7000, at 10 East Church Street. The rink article tells you to contact the recreation office and does not print a separate rink line. The city’s registration site, bethlehempa.myrec.com, lists the Recreation Bureau at 10 E. Church Street, Bethlehem, PA 18018, phone (610) 865-7081. Use those city numbers. This guide is not repeating a third phone that was not on either page.

Read the banner and the body together. On October 22, 2026 the rink page still opened with “CLOSED FOR THE SEASON.” The body of that same page says the rink is open from mid October through mid March, weather permitting, that private rink rental begins October 19, 2026, and that public skate sessions begin Friday, November 13. A city news post dated Monday, March 16, 2026 says the rink “will reopen for the 2026-2027 season on Monday, October 19th for hockey rentals ONLY and Friday, November 13th for public skate sessions.” October 19, 2026 has passed. November 13, 2026 is still ahead. The banner and the reopen dates disagree, so call before you go for a rental in the days before public skate starts. The pages do not print a last day. “Mid March, weather permitting” is the season line. Do not treat a specific March date from an older year as this season’s closing day. The March 16, 2026 post is the previous season’s closing announcement, not a 2027 end date.

Public session times on the rink page, with the note that sessions begin Friday, November 13, and that hours may vary for holidays and special events:

• Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday: 1–3 p.m.
• Tuesday and Thursday: 2:30–4:30 p.m.
• Friday: 7–9 p.m.
• Saturday: 1–3 p.m. and 7–9 p.m.

A later note says all session dates and times can change for staffing and weather. The page links a rink calendar for holiday sessions. Use that calendar in December. Christkindlmarkt is the holiday market at SteelStacks in the same months; it is a different event, in a different part of Bethlehem, and it is not a skate session.

Public skate fees on the page:

• Youth, 17 and under, and seniors, 62 and older: $8.00
• Adults, 18–61: $9.00
• Skate rental: $4.00, tax included

The page says it takes Visa, Mastercard, Discover, cash, and pre-paid passes. The age brackets are not the same as Steel Ice Center’s. An 11-year-old is an adult price at Steel Ice ($15) and a youth price at the municipal rink ($8). A 62-year-old pays the senior price outdoors and the adult price at Steel Ice, because Steel Ice’s public page does not print a senior rate.

Season passes, on the same page, go on sale Monday, October 5. That date is already past as of this check. The page says they can be bought online, by phone through the recreation office, or in person at the recreation office Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Passes cover unlimited admission to public and adaptive skate sessions only. Prices:

• Youth, ages 3–17: $70 resident / $100 non-resident
• Adult, ages 18–61: $80 resident / $110 non-resident
• Senior, ages 62 and over: $70 resident / $100 non-resident

Proof of residency is required. The page gives a driver’s license or a city bill as examples. The registration site adds that a photo and, for the resident rate, proof of residency have to be on the account before a pass is issued, and that members 17 and under can use a parent or guardian’s proof while anyone 18 or older submits their own.

Other prices on the rink page, same check date:

• Private rink rental: $340 per hour, for hockey or recreational skate. The page says 2026–2027 reservations begin August 1. That date has passed.
• Stick time: Tuesdays 5:45–6:45 p.m. beginning Tuesday, November 17. $12 per player. Goalies free. The page says it is for skills practice. Pick-up games, full-ice scrimmages, and organized games are prohibited. Protective gear is recommended.
• Skate sharpening: $7.00, tax included. Walk-in sharpening is only during public skate and stick time. Other times are by appointment with the recreation office.
• Adaptive skate: same admission and rental fees as public skate, by appointment, described as a safe and low-sensory session. The page does not print a standing adaptive clock time.
• Group skating lessons: ages 3 to 17, through the Bethlehem Skating School. The page points to registration and does not print a lesson price.

If You Are Skating for the First Time

Bring nothing the pages do not mention, and do bring a way to pay. Steel Ice’s rental is $5 on top of admission. The city’s rental is $4, tax included, on top of the $8 or $9 admission. You can skate without owning skates. Neither page lists sizes, so the front desk or the recreation office is the right call if a skater needs a very small or very large pair.

Steel Ice is indoors. The municipal rink is outdoors, and the city says weather can change the session. A coat that is fine for a lobby is not the same plan as an hour outside in January. That is planning advice, not a dress code either rink printed. Check the calendar the day you go. Steel Ice says times change and sessions live on the calendar. The city says holiday hours vary and that staffing or weather can move a session.

The two price charts use different age cuts. Read the line for the rink you are actually entering. A season pass at the municipal rink is not a Steel Ice ticket, and a Steel Ice public-skate admission is not a city pass.

Make a Winter Day of It in Bethlehem

Both rinks are in Bethlehem, about 1.9 miles apart in a straight line on the map check above. Steel Ice is the South Side stop, next to the SteelStacks campus in the rink’s own description. The outdoor rink is the Illick's Mill Road stop, which the map record places in Monocacy Hills, not on the South Side. They are not one walk.

Pair a skate with the rest of Bethlehem using the things to do in Bethlehem guide. Historic downtown and Main Street are a different neighborhood from the South Side. If the meal is the second half of the day, stay inside the Bethlehem restaurant directory. Apollo Grill is a downtown listing in that guide. Blue Grillhouse is another Bethlehem listing already used when the night is a steakhouse comparison. For a wider Valley day that is not only ice, the things to do in the Lehigh Valley guide is the overview, and the parks directory covers the outdoor stops that are not rinks.

Christkindlmarkt runs in Bethlehem in the holiday season. It is a market, not a skate. This page does not link a separate market guide. Confirm market dates on the organizer’s own page before you combine the two.