"To me, it seems incredible that a town like Boulogne (...) is unable to maintain and run an ice rink when much smaller, much more modest towns can", says an amateur hockey player after the mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt, in the western suburbs of Paris, announced the closure of the Olympic ice rink, which welcomes tens of thousands of visitors every year, on the grounds that it was too expensive and not environmentally friendly enough. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES