I Learned the Hard Way: Stop Scheduling Your Ice Rink by Gut Feel

Let me tell you about the Tuesday that finally broke me.

I was running a mid-sized ice rink—nothing fancy, just a solid sheet with a rental counter and a Zamboni that broke down every third Tuesday. I'd been scheduling staff the same way for years: I'd stare at the calendar, squint, and say "eh, probably need three people tonight." Sometimes I was right. Sometimes I was a full-on disaster.

One Tuesday afternoon, I had three rink guards standing around while the skate rental counter had a line of 14 people. Total revenue for that hour? $220.

I was paying three people to support $220. That's about $73 per person—well below what I needed to keep the lights on. Meanwhile, the previous Saturday night, I'd run two guards on a $770 hour, and half the crowd waited so long for rentals they left.

That's when I stopped guessing and started dividing.

The Simple Math That Saved My Sanity

Here's the formula I wish someone had handed me 15 years ago: rink guards needed for a given hour = that hour's expected revenue / your agreed-upon revenue-per-rink guard target.

First, I sat down with my floor leadership—the senior guards, the rental manager, the resurfacer operator—and we agreed on one number: the revenue an average rink guard should support doing an average job for an average crowd. We landed on $110 an hour. That's a floor, not a ceiling.

If you show up, take care of an average crowd, and give average service, you should support at least $110 in revenue. The rink guards who want to grow don't coast to $110 and clock out—they hit it doing average work, then look for the upsell, the rebooking, the next party. That number gave everyone the same yardstick: leadership, me, and every rink guard on the floor.

Then I pulled my trailing four-to-eight-week revenue by hour and by day. That slow Tuesday afternoon running $220 an hour? $220 divided by $110 equals 2 rink guards. That Saturday night peak running $770 an hour?

I needed 7. Two rink guards each supporting their honest $110 covers the $220 the floor actually generates—and if they upsell, the block beats it. I ran that division for every hour and the staffing plan wrote itself.

No favorites, no "we've always run 2 people," no manager scheduling their friends—just revenue divided by the target.

Now, I hold a hard safety floor on top of the revenue count: trained rink guards watching the ice at all times plus a skate-rental and resurfacer rotation. The math never overrides eyes on the ice. But once that minimum is covered, the revenue formula drives everything.

Where to Put the Bodies When the Revenue Shows Up

The count tells you how many; the revenue timing tells you when. I pulled the hourly sales and looked at when bookings and walk-ins actually posted. The rush hit the evening public-skate and weekend rush, so I started staffing a light open, a swing through the lull, and a heavy evening public-skate and weekend rush rather than parking everyone at noon.

The schedule matched traffic instead of habit.

I use a free tool that runs this whole method in my browser: the Rep Scheduling Matrix from PULSE. It takes a revenue target and a per-shift minimum and auto-distributes the shift counts by block, protecting my highest-revenue hours instead of spreading bodies flat across the week.

No login, no spreadsheet, instant shift counts by day and block. It's built by a 25-year revenue operator for exactly this question, and it's free.

The Tools That Actually Work (Ranked, Because I Tried Them All)

I tested everything. Here's how they stack up for an ice rink operator who wants the schedule to track the money, not just fill the grid. A single location or a regional group of venues—same method, swap the floor plan and the daily averages.

1. PULSE Rep Scheduling Matrix 🏆 BEST OVERALL

Free, browser-only, built around the revenue-per-rink guard method. It runs the whole division across every day and every block at once. Best for owners and floor managers who want the schedule to come straight off the revenue math and refuse to pay per-seat fees to get it. Use it free at Rep Scheduling Matrix .

2. 7shifts

Purpose-built for hospitality and high-traffic, hourly-heavy floors. Free Comp tier for one location, paid plans from about $34.99 per location per month (Entree) to $76.99 (The Works). Ties scheduling to POS sales and labor-percentage targets.

You still set the $110 target yourself, but it keeps labor as a percentage of revenue front and center.

3. Homebase 💎 BEST VALUE

The best value in the category. Scheduling and time-clock tier is free for a single location with unlimited employees. Paid tiers (Essentials around $24.95 per location per month, Plus around $59.95, All-in-One around $99.95) are priced per location rather than per head.

For a rink with a deep bench of part-timers and seasonal staff, per-location pricing is dramatically cheaper than per-user tools.

4. When I Work

The most widely used shift-scheduling app for hourly teams. Starts around $2.50 per user per month on Essentials, climbs to roughly $8 per user per month with attendance and labor tools. Handles availability, shift swaps, and mobile clock-in cleanly.

Won't tell you a Saturday peak needs 7 people—you bring the headcount math; it runs the logistics.

5. Deputy

Runs about $4.50 per user per month for scheduling, $6 for the premium tier with time and attendance. Demand-based scheduling that suggests staffing against projected sales when connected to a POS feed. Also handles compliance—break rules, overtime alerts, fair-workweek laws—which matters once you run minors, long weekend shifts, or multiple locations.

6. Sling

Good for teams that need simple shift swaps and communication. Not built around revenue math, but handles the logistics cleanly.

7. Connecteam

Strong for mobile-first teams with lots of part-timers. Free tier for up to 10 users, paid plans starting around $29 per month. Good for scheduling, time tracking, and team communication.

8. Buddy Punch

Simple time-tracking and scheduling. Starts around $4.99 per user per month. Does what it says—punch in, punch out, schedule shifts—but doesn't help with the revenue math.

9. Humanity

Enterprise-grade scheduling with complex rule sets. Pricey, but handles unions, seniority, and complicated shift bidding.

10. MakeShift

Good for large teams with shift trading and open-shift bidding. Not built for revenue-based scheduling, but solid execution.

The Punchline

Stop scheduling by gut. Start dividing by $110. Your rink guard's time is worth exactly what the revenue supports—no more, no less. And if you want the math done for you, grab the free Rep Scheduling Matrix . It saved me from ever having three people standing around on a $220 Tuesday again.

*— Kory White, Chief Revenue Officer, 25 years in the trenches*

*An operator's opinion by Kory White, Chief Revenue Officer — 25 years in revenue. More at PULSE · CRO Syndicate*