A seven-year run of the Cathedral of St. Paul hosting Red Bull Crashed Ice has ended.

The international extreme-sporting event doesn’t have St. Paul scheduled on its website for 2019. Instead, Crashed Ice will head to Yokohama, Japan, Dec. 7-8; Jyvaskyla, Finland, Feb. 2, 2019, and Boston Feb. 8-9, 2019.

Crashed Ice consisted of professional and amateur ice cross downhill skaters racing down an ice track of more than 1,000 feet from around the Cathedral’s façade to the bottom of Cathedral Hill. Multiple priests skated down the track prior to the event in previous years. Cathedral volunteers offered tours of the church during Crashed Ice.

“The Cathedral was able to open its doors each year to many people who had never been here before,” said Father John Ubel, the rector of the Cathedral. “That alone is a form of evangelization. I believe that beauty itself is a witness to the glory of God, and my hope is that people who saw the beauty of this building were moved to consider the source of that beauty in God himself.”

Red Bull worked out a partnership in 2011 with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to use the Cathedral grounds, including the parking lot, during the weeks of set-up and take down for the event. Red Bull compensated the Cathedral for its accommodation by helping with the debt on its dome repairs.

Father Ubel also noted that the Red Bull workers were “excellent guests.”

“They made good use of every single hour of every day,” Father Ubel said of the workers. “Additionally, when needed, they helped us shovel snow, they assisted us with the takedown of the large outdoor crèche, and in many other ways were so gracious and hard-working, ready to lend a needed hand.  The workers were amazing, operating in all kinds of January weather.