How to Find Pickup Hockey Near You — A Skater's Guide

If you’ve ever sat in a freshly Zambonied locker room with full gear on, waiting for pucks to drop, and thought I’d skate three times a week if I could just find the ice, this guide is for you. Pickup hockey is everywhere if you know where to look — and miserable to find if you don’t.

Here’s how to actually find pickup hockey, stick & puck, and open skate near you, whether you’re brand new to the game or coming back to it after years away.

What “pickup hockey” actually means

Pickup hockey is informal, drop-in ice hockey. No fixed roster, no season, no commitment. You show up, pay the organizer or rink (usually $15–$30), get a jersey color, and play. In Canada it’s often called shinny(yes, our app’s namesake). In the US it shows up under names like drop-in hockey, open hockey, adult pickup, or stick time.

A handful of close cousins to know:

• Stick & puck— pucks on the ice, no goalies, no game format. Pure skill work. Great for new skaters because mistakes don’t cost a goal.
• Open skate / public skate — recreational ice, usually no sticks allowed. Not hockey, but worth knowing about for kids or partners.
• Beer league — committed, scheduled adult hockey. Different beast; covered in a future article.

Why pickup hockey is so hard to find

The problem isn’t that there’s no pickup hockey. There’s a ton of it. The problem is that the information lives in roughly fifteen different places at once:

• A Facebook group your friend’s coworker runs
• A WhatsApp chat from a guy who organized one game in 2022
• A rink website that hasn’t been updated since the Obama administration
• A Discord server you didn’t know existed
• The bulletin board at your rink’s pro shop
• Word of mouth in the parking lot

Goalies suffer the worst. There’s a chronic goalie shortage in adult hockey, and the first organizer to text a tendy at 4:38pm wins. If you’re a goalie, the right setup means you skate for free three nights a week. If you’re a skater, the right setup means you don’t miss the game on the night you were free.

Where to look, in order

1. Your local rink’s website

Every rink in North America runs at least one weekly stick & puck. Most run an adult pickup or two. Some run learn-to-play clinics that are basically pickup with a coach. Their websites are usually outdated, but the front-desk staff knows the current schedule. Walk in and ask.

2. The pro shop bulletin board

Underrated. The board has the actual current schedule. It also has the “skaters needed Tuesday 9pm” flyers that never make it online. Take a photo of it every time you’re at the rink.

3. USA Hockey’s and Hockey Canada’s affiliate directories

Both governing bodies maintain lists of registered rinks and adult-hockey affiliates. Useful for finding leagues and clinics. Less useful for casual pickup, but a good starting point for newcomers to a city. (Shinny’s rink directory covers both, sourced from OpenStreetMap, augmented by community submissions.)

4. Reddit and city-specific Facebook groups

Search r/hockey for “[your city] pickup” — there’s almost always a recent thread. Facebook groups for “[your city] adult hockey” are gold but only if you check them often enough to catch the same-day asks.

5. Shinny (yes, this is the pitch)

We built Shinny because the above five steps are exhausting. The whole point of the app is:

• You set the rinks you’ll travel to.
• You pick “skater” or “goalie” (or both).
• Any time an organizer at one of your rinks posts a pickup, stick & puck, tryout, or open skate, we ping you in-app and by email.
• One tap to RSVP. Live count of skaters and goalies, by jersey color.

It’s free. It’s for the US and Canada. It doesn’t replace your Facebook group — it sits on top of it. The organizers who posted on Facebook can also post on Shinny, and the players who used to scroll Facebook can stop scrolling and just get pinged.

If you’re a brand-new skater

Pickup hockey assumes you can skate forward, backward, and stop. If you’re not there yet, start with:

• A learn-to-skate program at your rink (usually 8–10 weeks, $200ish)
• Public skate sessions, twice a week, in skates only — no gear
• A learn-to-play hockey clinic (most rinks run these in fall/winter)

Once you can do a hockey stop both ways and skate backward without falling, you’re ready for stick & puck. Once you’re comfortable in stick & puck (controlled passes, shots from the slot), you’re ready for a beginner-tier pickup. Most adult pickup games are graded by skill — D-tier and below welcomes new skaters.

If you’re a goalie

Read this paragraph twice. Goalies are the most-wanted role in adult hockey, period. If you can put on the gear and stop pucks at a beginner level, you will get free or discounted ice constantly. The trick is being findable: post yourself in the local Facebook group, get on every rink’s “goalies” mailing list, and turn on Shinny alerts with the “goalie openings” filter so you only get pinged when a net is actually open.

A goalie shortage at one rink is a goalie shortage at every rink within a 50-mile radius. Get on the lists once, then sit back. The texts start.

A normal week, once it’s set up

Here’s what a typical adult hockey schedule looks like for someone who’s done the setup work:

• Tuesday 9:30pm: standing pickup at the rink near work. $25/skater. Same guys every week.
• Thursday 7am: morning stick & puck at the suburban rink. $15. Cheap and quiet.
• Random Saturday: open pickup that pops up in Shinny. Sometimes you go, sometimes you don’t. The point is you know about it.

That’s three skates a week, and zero of them require you to remember to check a Facebook group on a Wednesday afternoon.

Get started

If you want the “automatic ice time” version of the above:

1. Sign in to Shinny (free, no credit card)
2. Set your local rinks on your profile (or browse /rinks first)
3. Pick your skill level and whether you’re a skater, a goalie, or both
4. Pick in-app, email, or both for how we ping you when something pops up

First ping usually shows up within a week, depending on how active your rinks are. Until then, walk in and take that photo of the pro shop bulletin board.