Good question
I was wondering about that
I can see Skate UK lessons working, teachers keeping a distance, maybe wearing masks
I can see patch possibly working, again you have a limited number of people whose behaviour is easier to control, people are training mainly not socialising
Maybe dance and pair skating OK as they are always the same people together
Hockey seems more problematic - maybe training OK, matches/contact less so
Public sessions seem like a problem to me - even if you limit numbers, people go in groups, go to socialise and cannot control being 2m away from people
And you'd need to clean areas that people touch, like skates, barriers, doors, toilets etc. Most rinks I go to are pretty bad at that
Not sure rinks are sustainable without public sessions, financially, and no-one would want to do Skate UK if they could not skate on a public session at some point in the future. As a minimum you'd need hockey training, that brings in a lot of money. But without matches, who would want to learn/train?
People may be asked to skate in masks - could be tricky. Public sessions often quite unruly and unsupervised.
I can't see ice rinks being a govt priority
I expect to be skating on wheels mainly, in the future
Btw, I personally don't necessarily endorse any of the above considerations as necessary or valid, just an assessment of measures that are likely to be demanded by authorities and expected by public.