Around 7 on a Friday evening, the parking lot off Hwy 82 near the east side of town starts filling up with minivans and pickups. Inside Star Skating Center, the lights drop, the mirror ball catches the strobes, and about a hundred people of varying age and ability start circling the rink floor. If you haven’t been to a roller skating rink since the early 2000s, this will feel like a reasonable time machine.
Star Skating Center has been operating in Sherman for decades and it shows — in a good way. The rink itself is smooth hardwood, well-maintained and large enough that even on busy nights there’s room to actually skate rather than shuffle. The layout is classic: skate rental counter up front, an arcade section along one wall, a snack bar selling the expected (nachos, hot dogs, soft drinks, slushies), and a DJ booth that leans on pop radio hits mixed with throwback requests. They do not take themselves too seriously. Neither should you.
Admission runs around $7–9 per person on a regular public skate night, and skate rentals are in the $3–4 range for standard quad skates. They do have some inline skates available, though availability is hit or miss — if you have your own, bring them. Kids under a certain age skate free on certain nights; it’s worth calling ahead or checking their Facebook page, which is where they post schedule changes and theme nights most reliably.
Theme nights are worth paying attention to. They rotate through 80s nights, glow skate events, Christian skate nights, and family-only sessions throughout the month. The glow skates in particular draw a noticeably bigger crowd — the rink hands out glow accessories, blacklights come up, and the atmosphere shifts from low-key to genuinely festive. Those sessions book the place out pretty solidly, so arriving early matters.
The staff is patient with beginners, and they keep a good supply of those little skating aids — plastic walker-style frames — available for small kids still figuring out balance. It’s not uncommon to see grandparents on skates alongside their grandkids, which is either charming or terrifying depending on everyone’s skill level. The skate floor guards do a decent job keeping traffic moving and breaking up collisions before they get dramatic.
From a practical standpoint: it gets loud. The music is turned up the way it should be at a skating rink, which means it’s not a great choice for anyone noise-sensitive. The snack bar is cash-friendly but also takes cards. Bathrooms are clean enough. Parking is free and plentiful. The building itself is functional rather than fancy — industrial-style drop ceiling, fluorescent trim lighting along the rink edge — but nobody comes here for the architecture.
What Sherman’s Star Skating Center actually offers is a reasonably priced, genuinely fun evening that works for a wide range of ages and doesn’t require advance planning beyond checking the night’s session time. For a city that loses a lot of its entertainment options to Denison or Sherman’s bigger neighbors, having a functional, affordable rink still running is no small thing. Friday nights are the peak experience. Sunday afternoons are slower and easier if you’re working with beginners or just want to circle at your own pace.
It’s on the east side of Sherman, close to the highway and easy to find. Just look for the parking lot that gets busier after dark.
