Old Time Hockey

I was flying out to San Francisco the later part of last week and I had a layover in Minneapolis.  As we were approaching the runway we flew over a school that had an outdoor rink behind it and it brought back some great memories of growing up in Wisconsin and playing hockey as a kid.

I realized that my son, if he is so fortunate enough to play the game, will never get to experience the way that I got to experience the game (we now live in Indianapolis).  He will never be able to walk down to the nearest outdoor rink and lace up his hockey skates in a dank warming house that smells like over-heated plastic from the rusty old space heaters and the rubber mats used to “protect” your skates from the sand and rocks. Getting to know the attendant by first name, she letting you carry your stick inside, even though hut rules explicitly warn you to put your stick in the bin outside the door when you enter.

He will never be able to play in the Wisconsin cold, a cold so cold that your breath freezes as soon as it hits the air and your lungs burn with every stride, but you don’t go in, no matter what.  He’ll never get to show up and find the warming hut closed but  wanting to skate so badly, you find the most open spot you can and hop around on one leg as you try to get your skates on, trying your hardest not to get your socks full of snow.   Playing with kids two years older and two year younger, throwing your stick in the middle of the ice and separating them from one side to the other to create teams, looking for the older kids sticks so you can somehow get on the same team as them.

He will never be able to skate in early spring when the ice is almost too thin to skate, but you do anyway because the sun feels good and you can just play on a half sheet if one side gets too slushy.  Never get to play the game it was intended to be played, amongst friends and foes, but always for fun.