Shimla, Dec 28 - A sudden dip in the night temperature for the past few days has brought cheers to ice skating lovers in this Himachal Pradesh capital.

The natural formation of a thick coating of ice at Shimla's 90-year-old ice skating rink has brought the promise of more fun-filled skating sessions this time.

"This year the natural formation of ice in the rink has started well in time. We are hopeful of having a good number of skating sessions this winter," Bhuvnesh Banga, secretary of the Ice Skating Club, told IANS.

He said that these days around 50 skaters, especially youngsters, are coming to enjoy skating.

"From Dec 19 onwards, a thin layer of ice had started appearing on a small portion of the rink. Now in the past few days, a thick layer of ice has started surfacing on the entire rink. This is a good sign of more skating sessions in the weeks to come," he said.

Last year the skaters as well as tourists were left disappointed as the winter saw few really cold days.

As against the normal 65 to 90 skating sessions, only 27 sessions were held between December 2008 and February 2009.

The rink is Asia's one-of-its kind open air ice skating rink where water is sprinkled on clay at night left to freeze.

"The freezing of ice depends upon the weather god. If the sky is clear in the night, the chances of ice freezing are more. If the sky is cloudy, the night temperature rises and chances of ice formation are less. But the night temperature these days are quite conducive for the rink," Banga added.

Shimla recorded a minimum temperature of 2.3 degrees Celsius Monday, a decline of 0.4 degrees from Sunday.

The idea of a natural skating rink was developed by an Irish military official called Blessington who lived in the area. He had inadvertently kept a bucket of water outside his residence and found in the morning that it had frozen. That gave him the idea of a skating rink and he created a small one of his own in 1920. (IANS)