
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Do Backyard Rinks have Drink?
Well, they might. Something about the process of creating and maintaining them does, anyway.
Lately I've been spending untold hours in a frozen netherworld at the back of my back yard, preoccupied with boards, tarps, slope, snow, pipes, hoses, leaks, and, of course, weather. All this to provide my progeny with a 20' x 20' sheet of the slippery stuff to play our game on. More ice in my yard than in my drink, lately. But as I stood out there tonight in the -10 night air, my fingers frozen around the hose, swirls of snow gusting off the neighbours' garage roof and hissing gently into the 1/4" of water freezing before my eyes on my ice pad, I felt a special kind of winter peace enveloping everything out there, including me. Tomorrow the rink will echo with the slap-boom of the puck off the stick then off the boards, the grind & crunch of blades digging up the ice, and the clang of the red metal goalposts stopping some object's flight--but tonight it was all slow, quiet preparation. And a few snow-cooled Creemore to lubricate the process.

That's a lot of effort, a lot of cold for a 20 x 20 slab of ice. In your little backyard? Hat's off to you Abbot - for even in such small confines, the drink of hockey is there: the sound of blades cutting into ice; pucks hitting stick blades; and of course boys happy voices. The Creemore therefore is well deserved by the Dad...
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