Sunday, November 19, 2006
Growing up Canadian
This article in today’s Toronto Star hit a sympathetic nerve with me. It appears that the Great Canadian Tradition of outdoor hockey rinks is going away. In Southern Ontario at least.
On Melting Pond
I grew up in a place called Musselman’s Lake. The lake froze pretty much every winter and we could skate and snowmobile over it. Plus there was Mud Lake (a small pond really) that we’d all shovel off the snow and practice our figure skating, and play a shinny game of hockey. Heck, the street I grew up on would flood and freeze and we could skate and play hockey on the street! Or skate right from our front door to the hockey rink cleared off on Mud Lake. We learned to skate fairly young, even me and my sister, daughters of an Englishman who’d never had a pair of skates on his feet, and the Canadian Mum who had the worst balance in the country and couldn’t skate. She got the older girl up the street to teach us. Bernadette. That was her name. I think I was 5 when I got my first pair of skates. Kids these days get skates about the time they can walk 5 steps without falling. ;-)
But, they can’t skate outdoors like we could. The ponds and lakes aren’t freezing like they used to. Flooded back yards and parks aren’t freezing either. The only rinks that freeze are the ones artificially made and refrigerated, and the indoor ones. Its such a shame. It really is a lot of fun, playing hockey, or practicing your triple lutz and falling face first into a freshly shoveled snowbank. If you’re properly dressed of course. When I was 12 I got a horrible case of frostbite from my middle back down to my toes because I was out skating and the boys decided to tackle me and hold me down on the ice. I only had jeans on, no long underwear, and no snowpants. I had a light winter coat on, and a couple pairs of socks. But I got frostbite and man o’ man did it hurt! I still suffer from it to this day. 25 years later. Gods, I’m getting old!
Its such a shame that my nephew and niece will probably never get to skate on a frozen pond, unless my sister and brother in law take them far enough up north where its still cold enough to freeze. But they won’t likely ever be able to put their skates on at the front door and skate down to the rink. South Central Ontario hardly ever gets enough snow anymore, let alone cold enough to freeze a community outdoor rink.
*sigh*
No one here that I work with in Morganton has ever skated, has never frozen their backyard, or the park, or the tennis courts to play hockey. One of them has a cousin in Minnesota who plays hockey, and loves to skate. They just don’t get it here. They don’t even have an indoor rink.
Perhaps if we move to higher elevations there will be a rink somewhere. Apparently some of the ski resorts here in Western NC have outdoor rinks sometimes. And its already snowed up in the mountains, and more than one of the resorts have started making snow and plan to open next week. So maybe…
Maybe when I go home for my visit I can rent a pair of skates at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto and go glide on the ice. Or fall and break a hip…I haven’t been on skates in a few years!
Here’s hoping for a cold winter, and some smoothe firm ice. ¶ 11:56 AM
On Melting Pond
Skating on a natural pond or a homemade flooded rink: What could be more exhilarating, healthy or fun? And, more recently, doomed?
Not one of Toronto's natural ponds, for years maintained by the city for public skating, opened last winter. Centennial Park in Etobicoke closed its natural ice rink in 2000. L'Amoreaux Park in Scarborough, also closed. Toogood Pond didn't open last winter for the first time in five years because it didn't freeze to the 20-centimetre (eight-inch) thickness the town of Markham requires for safety. (Markham, which has no artificial outdoor rinks, has optimistically introduced an ice-rink program for community volunteers to flood rinks in their neighbourhoods.)
As winter temperatures appear to be rising, skating on natural ice may be a thing of the past, something we remember, the way we remember wearing scratchy woollen socks when we go out in the cold instead of smooth, modern polypropylene ones.
I grew up in a place called Musselman’s Lake. The lake froze pretty much every winter and we could skate and snowmobile over it. Plus there was Mud Lake (a small pond really) that we’d all shovel off the snow and practice our figure skating, and play a shinny game of hockey. Heck, the street I grew up on would flood and freeze and we could skate and play hockey on the street! Or skate right from our front door to the hockey rink cleared off on Mud Lake. We learned to skate fairly young, even me and my sister, daughters of an Englishman who’d never had a pair of skates on his feet, and the Canadian Mum who had the worst balance in the country and couldn’t skate. She got the older girl up the street to teach us. Bernadette. That was her name. I think I was 5 when I got my first pair of skates. Kids these days get skates about the time they can walk 5 steps without falling. ;-)
But, they can’t skate outdoors like we could. The ponds and lakes aren’t freezing like they used to. Flooded back yards and parks aren’t freezing either. The only rinks that freeze are the ones artificially made and refrigerated, and the indoor ones. Its such a shame. It really is a lot of fun, playing hockey, or practicing your triple lutz and falling face first into a freshly shoveled snowbank. If you’re properly dressed of course. When I was 12 I got a horrible case of frostbite from my middle back down to my toes because I was out skating and the boys decided to tackle me and hold me down on the ice. I only had jeans on, no long underwear, and no snowpants. I had a light winter coat on, and a couple pairs of socks. But I got frostbite and man o’ man did it hurt! I still suffer from it to this day. 25 years later. Gods, I’m getting old!
Its such a shame that my nephew and niece will probably never get to skate on a frozen pond, unless my sister and brother in law take them far enough up north where its still cold enough to freeze. But they won’t likely ever be able to put their skates on at the front door and skate down to the rink. South Central Ontario hardly ever gets enough snow anymore, let alone cold enough to freeze a community outdoor rink.
*sigh*
No one here that I work with in Morganton has ever skated, has never frozen their backyard, or the park, or the tennis courts to play hockey. One of them has a cousin in Minnesota who plays hockey, and loves to skate. They just don’t get it here. They don’t even have an indoor rink.
Perhaps if we move to higher elevations there will be a rink somewhere. Apparently some of the ski resorts here in Western NC have outdoor rinks sometimes. And its already snowed up in the mountains, and more than one of the resorts have started making snow and plan to open next week. So maybe…
Maybe when I go home for my visit I can rent a pair of skates at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto and go glide on the ice. Or fall and break a hip…I haven’t been on skates in a few years!
Here’s hoping for a cold winter, and some smoothe firm ice. ¶ 11:56 AM
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They still clear off rinks at the Lake. It hasn't been cold enough yet to freeze tho'. Your nephew likes to skate on the backyard rink across the street from his house. I almost broke down and said neibours could make a rink in my yard last year but came to my senses and bit my tongue. I'm not up to refereeing a gaggle of teenaged boys anymore.
I used to skate, have the scars to prove it. :)
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I used to skate, have the scars to prove it. :)
# posted by 
: 9:13 PM
: 9:13 PMSubscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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