Skating into the Future

In the second grade, a classmate asked if I wanted to participate in school ice hockey. It was held weekly at a local outdoor rink and one of the male teachers would referee. The rink’s surface was regulation size with standard-height boards and some metal sheeting was placed on the east and west sides as well as the north end to slow the robust wintery winds. A hall with dressing rooms in the basement had been constructed on the south end. School teams were divided between players from first grade through fourth grade as well as fifth grade through eighth.

After all, this was Canada and hockey was an unquestionable ritual of most youth. I only had one huge dilemma. I didn’t have any skates. Having arrived in Canada just a couple of years prior, toys and recreational gear of any type, were very rare. My mother came to the rescue – well, at least somewhat.

She managed to get a pair of skates from a Finnish neighbor, a widower, and an longtime empty nester. The skates given to me were white. The shape was not quite a figure skate or a hockey skate – the back ankle support or what some may call the Achilles board was absent like that of most goalie skates, but the blades were that of a regulation hockey skate for that time period. I had yet to realize skate blades needed to be periodically sharpened.

I spent most of the evening prior to school hockey with black shoe polish – a commodity in our house since Sunday shoes needed to be polished weekly for church – if polish was lacking, butter was the next best thing - it made the shoes shiny but also attracted neighborhood dogs. I put on coat after dried coat and in the morning put on some more – no matter how much polish I used the skates looked like a well-worn and tattered, charcoal painting.

Nevertheless, I brought them to school – an embarrassing bus journey, but not as humiliating as dumping them into the clothes closet in the classroom. “Wow, what kind of skates are those?” It was the critical face of the student who asked me if I wanted to play. He grabbed them and looked them over like a bag of rotting potatoes. He dropped them with a look of loathing and repulsion. I used my feet to push the skates into a far, more inconspicuous corner of the closet.

I made it to the rink after school but was immediately confronted with another problem. I didn’t have a hockey stick. I didn’t know I had to have one. Each squad had a captain – one of the better players. He looked at me and I said I didn’t know we needed a stick. He was outwardly disgusted with my ignorance. He then looked at my skates and said, “Put on the goalie equipment, no skates.”

With help from the on-duty teacher, I dressed and walked onto the ice surface, and went into the net to play goalie. Had there been the traditional red light that is lit when a goal is scored, I would’ve left the rink that late afternoon with a sunburn on the back of my neck. I walked home after the game – weeping.

I did not play school hockey again that year, instead, I found a lengthy iced-over ditch and intently practiced skating on many wintry evenings and well into the darkness of night. A neighbor who lived some 50 feet away would often see me there and share her outside porch light.

Canada’s youth of today may not have to suffer the same humiliation that I endured in the second grade. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Canada’s state-sponsored media says, “One of the casualties of climate change may be the backyard ice rink”. They note that Canada is warming at, “twice the rate of the rest of the world — and three times as fast in the Arctic.” Canada has multiple climactic zones, perhaps more than any other nation, yet this, as most details, seems to have escaped the fearmongers.

I write further about this ludicrousness in my blog, “Everywhere Warms Faster than Anywhere” and the linked video that shows everywhere is predicted to warm faster and harder than anywhere else. Of course, these are just claims and conjectures made by progressive alarmists. Most Canadians today, no longer skate on corner or backyard rinks, but rather in arenas with artificial ice. However, those that do skate in outdoor areas will do so into perpetuity. On a concluding note, considering the length and breadth of this past winter in much of Canada, I suspect the CBC did not write a sequel to this article.