It didn't take long for Nick Nickerson, 72, to make his move. Playing hockey at Pickwick Ice Arena, he saw something more tempting than an empty net. Walter Stavert, one of Pickwick's owners, had just walked in.

"I skated over," he said, "and asked to talk to him; told him how old I was and took off my helmet so he could see my gray hair. When I let him know I'd been playing there for years and hoped he would reconsider his decision to close the rink, he said, 'Well, we're gonna keep it going.' "

A few days later, Kristin Thomas, 11, walked to the mike at a meeting of the Burbank Park and Recreation Board and made a slightly different pitch. "I skate there all the time," she said. "It's keeping kids off the street."

While many ice rinks are closing in Southern California--their owners saying there are more profitable uses for the property--the former manager of Iceland in Paramount says ice rinks can be profitable if they are properly managed.

Arnie Sagarsky, who left Iceland on May 21 to manage a rink in Nevada, said he tripled the Iceland's gross in five years.

Pickwick's Stavert has not commented on the effect of appeals by Nickerson and others, or whether he will back keep the promise that Nickerson reported.

But the answer may come today, when representatives of Pickwick management--presumably Stavert, his son Edward and Frank Silvio, Pickwick general manager--meet with Robert R. (Bud) Ovrom, Burbank's city manager.

"I asked for the meeting before I left on vacation," Ovrom said. "The City Council and I are very interested in the whole notion of commercial recreation, not just the ice rink. That kind of thing--skating rinks, bowling alleys, etc.--is a vital part of the community mix and it seems to be vanishing."

"The Staverts are definitely having second thoughts," said John Halebian, chairman of Save the Ice Committee. "They've had a contractor in to look at the roof again--repairing it would be one of the major expense items."

Gino Vella of Pasadena, vice chairman of the committee, said he, Halebian and Margarita Aedo, vice president of the L.A. Figure Skating Club, met with Pickwick management Tuesday and he came away with "a very positive feeling about keeping the rink open."

The three spoke with Ed Stavert, Silvio and Cary Adams, the rink manager. "They said in essence," Vella related, "that it all depends on what happens at the meeting today. What that means is they want to see what the city will do for them."