AUBURN — Hunter Dolan sure liked his new skates — until his dad put them on the boy’s feet.

His father, Justin, of Lisbon and a friend, Ryan Hiltz, thought Saturday’s opening of the Norway Savings Bank Arena would be a great opportunity to introduce the 18-month-old to the joys of ice-skating. They strapped the tiny blue and red skates onto his feet, wrapped a helmet around his head and took him out on the ice.

“My buddy and I’ve been trying to get out and go skating, and we saw the arena was open,” Justin Dolan said. “My wife is out shopping today, so we figured we might give it a shot.”

Hunter lasted about 10 minutes, skooching along the ice behind a white plastic bucket for a few laps before he was finished.

“We played hockey growing up, and we think he’ll be into it,” Justin said. “He’s getting good at walking around on the skates, so it’s a work in progress.”

For arena manager Josh MacDonald, that was what Saturday was all about.

“This is the part I love, seeing the smile on a child’s face, skating for the first time,” he said. “This has been spectacular.”

MacDonald figured at least 800 people had crossed the threshold of the new ice rink on its first full day of operation. Saturday morning was devoted to youth hockey, with a public skate in the afternoon and a high school girls’ hockey tournament Saturday night.

The arena officially opened Friday night, with sponsored skates and a teen dance that drew more than 70 children.

“They were like, ‘Why didn’t anybody do this before?'” MacDonald said. “So, we’re going to try and do this every Friday night.”

The city scheduled a slate of activities this weekend for the transition from the Ingersoll ice arena to the new one. Sunday’s events will be devoted to the closing of Ingersoll, with final youth and pickup hockey games and the final community skate scheduled for 2 p.m. It will culminate in an effort to pack the ice at Ingersoll for a panoramic photograph at 4:15 p.m.

“There are a lot of people that really love Ingersoll, and they are sad to see that it won’t be a hockey rink anymore,” he said. “The passion that they have for that building is the reason we built this one. It’s the commitment that the hockey community has and that’s shown here.”

Crews will begin removing the Ingersoll boards and other equipment and relocating them to the new arena’s second ice surface on Nov. 18. That second ice surface is scheduled to open Dec. 6.

MacDonald said the second floor should be open to the public at about the same time, and an official grand opening is planned for January.

The new arena will host its first invitational youth tournament on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to offer a mid-season tournament,” said Bob Berube of Maine Hockey Development.

Berube said the Thanksgiving Turkey Shootout will bring 30 teams from Canada and Massachusetts to games at the Auburn rink, the Portland Ice Arena and the University of Southern Maine rink. Forty games are scheduled for the weekend, with 14 at the Norway Savings Bank Arena, he said.

“And that’s just because they only have the one ice sheet open,” Berube said. “We expect, once they have both sheets open, we’ll be able to do more.”

Berube said Auburn has hosted his youth hockey tournaments before, but this time it’s different.

“Ingersoll was used as overflow,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong: The schedule was full and there were always games there, but it was not the main venue. It was where we went when we could not fit other places.”

Berube said Auburn now will become the main venue for many of his annual tournaments.

“We’ll still use other venues because even with two rinks, it’s still not enough,” he said. “But it will let me put entire age divisions in one place. We can put all the Mites in Auburn so that all their games are there. They don’t have to travel between venues for all of their matches.”

[email protected]