21 Nov 28th-Dec 4th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Fun on Wheels Roller-skating resurgence sparks interest in new and old Valley roller rinks. BY JALEN WOODY | CRONKITE NEWS O ne of the country’s favorite pastimes has made a come- back. Social media plat- forms such as TikTok and various events have reintro- duced roller skating to a new generation. Kendra Mikkelson attended an adult skate night at the Zoni Girls’ new venue in the Arizona Center after being away from it for years. “I love skating, it’s my passion,” Mikkelson says. “(I’ve been skating) for most of my life, since I was 8. But I just got back into it within the last two years. What I like is that you don’t think about anything else, you just go into a bubble. I like the music, and I like the vibe.” Roller skating businesses such as Zoni Girls and USA’s Skateland in Mesa have tried to cash in on this renewed popularity. Zoni Girls is a roller skating business run by three sisters: Paige Alexandria, Tashi Gorzen and Sasha Gorzen. They started their business in 2019 after their father, Mark Gorzen, inspired them. He encouraged them to pursue skating from a young age and taught them how to skate when they were little girls. “He would always put us on a bike and weird things like that,” Alexandria says. The sisters rediscovered roller skating over the COVID-19 pandemic and started visiting skate parks around the Valley to build up their skills once more. TikTok has been one of the biggest sources for roller skating inspiration in recent years; videos about the sport are uploaded to the social media platform daily. Many people began to pick up the sport during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to multiple media outlets, and posted their daily progress to TikTok. “Moxi, Riedell, Sure-Grip, Impala — all the big skate brands were sold out,” Alexandria says. “You would try to go on their website, look for skates and they were sold out; it was crazy. Those businesses really thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic (because) of people just looking for ways to get fit and get active and get the heck out of their house or have any sort of community or connection at all.” Alexandria says that the resurgence of roller skating did not only affect the skating community as a whole, but it affected big- name companies and how they advertise their products to their customers. “Because now, (if) you look at Coca- Cola, Honda, like any silly commercial that you see on your Hulu account, there’s roller skating in it, and there didn’t used to be that,” Alexandria says. “It’s now become something that, not just like skaters and just the average Joe Schmo has found, it’s something that corporations have found as well. This is a trend.” After a while, Alexandria started to notice an entrepreneurial opportunity in roller skating and brought the idea of starting a business to her sisters. At first, Zoni Girls started as a clothing brand aimed at selling apparel to newly enthused roller skaters. Together, they sat down with their parents and planned out the details of their business. At the kitchen table, they drew out their logo and came up with a motto and a name for the business. “It didn’t seem unreachable because we had watched our parents build something up from the ground before,” Alexandria says. “I feel like a lot of people start their business journey with a logo idea or a motto or a name, and it changes over time.” After the three women attended events across the Valley for their business, Alexandria began brainstorming the idea of creating a pop-up roller rink that they would take along at the different events they attended. In 2023, the Zoni Girls began attending Seconnd Sundays on Mill Avenue in Tempe regularly, where they were approached by someone who worked for State Farm Stadium. The man wanted to hire them to do a pop-up roller rink during the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert pre-parties in Glendale. “We went through that whole process and learned a lot about contracting, and that was one of our first big events,” Alexandria says. “We went there, we made Taylor Swift Eras Tour T-shirts, we handed them out. We did a bunch of games, we did some skating and it was just such a fun event.” Zoni Girls opened a skate shop in Tempe on Myrtle Avenue and Seventh Street. After a couple months, they realized their customer base wanted to rent skates, and so they decided to start taking a few pairs of skates with them to various events. “We tried it, and within the first 10 minutes, we didn’t have any skates — our 10 skates were gone,” Alexandria says. “So, we bought another 10 pairs … and then we just started going to little skate events.” After attending more skating events and holding pop-up rink events around the Valley, Zoni Girls began to shift from a clothing brand to a skating brand. “I was really sad about it, and it A wall full of turquoise and pink Impala skates are available to skaters at the Zoni Girls venue at the Arizona Center in downtown Phoenix. (Photo by Aryton Temcio/Cronkite News) A skater makes a turn while skating during an event at the Zoni Girls roller venue on Nov. 16, 2024, at the Arizona Center in downtown Phoenix. (Photo by Aryton Temcio/Cronkite News) Ashley Madison, an employee at Zoni Girls in Phoenix, cleans the inside of skates with disinfectant spray during a break from checking in new skaters on Nov. 16, 2024. (Photo by Aryton Temcio/Cronkite News) >> p 22 ▼ Arts & Culture
