by Jacob Espinoza

Every time I ask what Salem is missing, somebody says roller skating.

Starting Friday, Oct. 2, you can do it at the ballpark.

Roto-Rooter Park in Keizer, the stadium a lot of us still call Volcanoes Stadium, is turning into a year-round family event space. The roller rink is first up, and it's one of four big things on the calendar between now and New Year's Eve.

The goal, according to Mickey Walker, the guy who runs the place, is to have something going on six to eight months of the year. That means more for families to do when it's cold and wet, and more people spending money at Keizer Station and around town.

A note on how I reported this: I interviewed Mickey Walker, CEO of the Mavericks League, on Sept. 25. The league plays all its games at Roto-Rooter Park, and Walker's team runs the events there. Dates and prices come from the stadium's ticketing site and Glow's website. Quotes are lightly trimmed for length, not meaning.

The rink comes from Skateland 2 You, a company that runs a mobile roller rink. It's setting up inside an enclosed event tent at the stadium, according to the ticketing site.

A two-hour session costs $10, and skate rental is included. Public skating, parties, groups and special skating nights are planned through New Year's Eve. Operating days, hours and online tickets are still listed as "coming soon," so keep an eye on the ticketing site.

Walker said the connection with Skateland 2 You happened about two months ago. The company needed a new spot for its rink, and the stadium agreed to a 90-day run timed to overlap with Glow.

When the stadium announced it, the response was, in Walker's words, "just nuts." He said the stadium's regular Facebook post, with no ad money behind it, got about 1,000 shares.

"I knew that it would be a relatively large announcement, but I was even shocked by the numbers that it did," he said.

If you've ever wondered why nobody opens a roller rink in one of the big buildings downtown, Walker had a pretty good answer.

"Roller skating is just a tough one," he said. "It takes a lot of 10 bucks a pop to pay rent and try to turn a profit. But when you're just putting up a tent in a parking lot, it's a little bit easier."

Quick background if you haven't followed the stadium's story. It opened in 1997 as the home of the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, a San Francisco Giants minor league team. When Major League Baseball cut ties with dozens of minor league teams in 2020 and 2021, the Volcanoes lost that connection. The Walker family started its own independent league, the Mavericks League, which plays every game at the park. The stadium took the Roto-Rooter name in 2025 through a naming-rights deal.

These days, baseball is just one piece. Right now there are softball tournaments on the weekends. The parking lot has hosted car shows and circuses. Then there's a month of Glow every December.

"If you really look at the bulk of the events that we do throughout the year, baseball's probably already like 50%," Walker said. That's his estimate, not a published count, but it tells you where things are headed.

"There's absolutely a world where baseball's only 25% of the events we do at the stadium," he said. "And I don't think that would be a bad thing, because the baseball's not going anywhere."

So why do all this? Walker said it's good for the business, but the bigger reason is what happens outside the stadium gates.

"The more people that we put through Salem-Keizer and through this area, the trickle-down benefits to the businesses, especially in Keizer Station but also just throughout Keizer and Salem, are massive," he said.

He pointed to Glow. Walker said about 30,000 people came last year, in a month when the stadium had basically never hosted anything.

"That's 30,000 more people driving through Keizer Station than would have ever been there in the past," he said.

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Think trunk-or-treat, where kids walk car to car collecting candy from decorated trunks, but bigger. Walker called it "a souped-up trunk-or-treat event."

The stadium did one two years ago with about 20 or 25 stops. "It was huge," Walker said. This year he said there could be as many as 100 to 150 hot rods, motorcycles and other stops for kids to hit.

This event will happen on Halloween, Saturday, October 31.

Glow is the Christmas light festival the stadium started last year with Glow Festival, a company founded in Langley, British Columbia. It's back Nov. 27 through Dec. 31 with an "Around the World" theme. Expect lit-up landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal and London Bridge, plus a 40-foot Christmas tree.

Walker said the show is "100% different" from last year. New this year:

Glow's website lists tickets at $19.99 for adults and $14.99 for kids 4 to 12 and seniors 65 and up. A five-person family pass is $69.99, kids 3 and under are free, and parking is $5. Glow and the roller rink are separate tickets.

On Dec. 31, the rink and Glow will both be open, and the stadium is adding live entertainment, activities for kids and a fireworks show.

The plan is a big show at 9 p.m. A midnight show is still possible, but Walker put the odds at about 80% that it's just the 9 p.m. show.

"We want to be focused on the family and the kids aspect of it," he said. He added that getting people out to an outdoor venue that late is just tougher.

They bring in people who've done it before. Walker said his team doesn't have the know-how to run things like a skating rink, so they partner with operators who do.

"I've never roller skated in my life," he said. With an operator who's spent their whole life running rinks, "now we have some confidence in the product that we'll be able to put together for folks."

They plan around the rain as best they can. Weather is the biggest challenge from October through March, Walker said. The stadium works with Key Event Services on its tents and covered spaces, and Glow has heated indoor areas where people can warm up. Being outside a little is "kind of part of the Northwest experience," he said.

But it's the same gamble as baseball.

"You could put together this incredible event, have all the pieces in place, and then you get a storm and it rains real bad or it's really cold and it just destroys everything," he said. "There's nothing you can do to stop Mother Nature."

Some things take a lot longer. The skating rink came together in a month or two. Glow took about a year and a half. Walker said the idea came up in spring 2023, the team spent time researching and looking at other shows, and the search for a partner started in 2024.

Walker said to expect more circuses, because the ones that came through want to come back, and more car shows.

The bigger idea is an ice rink as part of a future Glow season. Walker was clear it's still a ways out and depends on how roller skating goes.

If you've got an event idea for the space, he wants to hear it.

"We're interested in any and all events," Walker said. "We are only limited by our own creativity. That's the only limiting factor in what we can do."

The stadium's main line is 503-390-2225, or email [email protected].

A few weeks ago I wrote about Salem losing another mid-size venue. This is a venue going the other direction, adding things instead of closing.

Roller skating comes up every time I ask what Salem is missing. This fall, the answer is at the ballpark.