I have a revelation my third time at WeStreet Ice Center: Ice skating actually kind of sucks if you haven’t done it in a while. It’s like trying to balance on knives attached to ski boots. My first few laps feel like being constantly on the verge of face-planting, forever missing a step on a staircase and catching myself in mid-air panic.
But then, something shifts. I remember that it's okay to fall down sometimes. I relax. I start to glide. Briefly, I worry someone might steal my shoes (there are no lockers), but my shoes are fine. Everything is fine. Now I really start having fun.
“You think of ice rinks as being cold and dingy,” Andy Scurto, owner of the WeStreet Ice Center and the Tulsa Oilers, tells me. “This was built as an entertainment center.”
And it is. Between the ice rinks, arcade, bar, and other surprises, the WeStreet Ice Center is surreal, nostalgic, ambitious, and a little bit weird. In other words: perfect.
It’s also a constantly cool 52 degrees, something you can’t say about many places in Tulsa in the summer.
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If you glance at Google Maps, Puck’s Sports Bar and Grill appears to be inside Promenade Mall. That’s technically true, but it’s actually on the second floor inside WeStreet Ice Center. The old Macy’s department store metamorphosed into the region’s largest ice entertainment center in 2024. Don’t worry about what goes on in the rest of the Promenade.
Despite renovations, the space still has the bones of a mall. The escalators are intact, and there’s a lingering sense of liminality. I half-expect to see the ghost of a moody Hot Topic manager or part-time piercer on her way to Claire’s.