Sunday, April 2, 2006

Ice Time Here in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes becomes the land of 10,000 rinks during those few short nine months or so of winter we're dealt every year. Saying we're born with skates on is a bit of a gruesome metaphor, so instead, let me just say that we loves us our hockey. You betcha. Not only are we home state to the Hockey Hall of Fame, we were the site of the first U.S. Pond Hockey Championship held last year. I grew up on a lake, so we had a ready-made rink right in the backyard. Our neighbors had two older boys who'd shovel huge rinks. They'd make boards by piling snow up around it, freezing it with buckets of water until it was as solid as the real thing. In my child's eye it seemed like it was the length of a football field. A couple times a decade, the lake would freeze over before we got snow and you could skate one end to the other. We'd play hide-and-seek in the mazes of cattail reeds and press our faces to the ice to see if we could make out any memories of summer near the bottom. During one of these rare freezes, I went out to practice with a puck and a gallon ice cream bucket. That game ended quick when I missed my first shot and the puck slid about a quarter-mile away. Blessed with meaty thighs and a low-center of gravity, it was a sport I took to with gusto. I also reacted with gusto when my brother-in-law suggested we get a bunch of guys together and rent some ice time at Fogerty Arena in Blaine. The reaction from the rest of the group was enthusiastic, not the usual "Yeah, sure." indifference you normally get when you suggest a great idea three pints into the evening. So it's no surprise I found myself walking into the arena at 10pm this past Saturday with a duffel bag slung from one shoulder and a stick over the other. Just another kid looking for a pick-up game. I've skated here and there and gotten in the odd hockey game every now and then (In one I accidentally leveled three-time Tour de France winner Greg LaMond. It was good to see that he was gasping for breath along with the rest of us,), but it's been several years since I had a chance to strap on the pads and play. The memories came back as soon as I opened the locker room. There was the smell the refrigeration coils in the arena. The stale memory of sweat lingered everywhere, for no sport is as pungent as hockey. You have to dress up warm and still end up sweating like it's mid-August. And the equipment doesn't lend itself very well to a washing machine. The other senses were sliding back up the frozen river of time too. The taste of the drool-filled mouthguard sucking against your teeth. The slicing skritch of blades on the freshly zambonied ice. The rolling gunshot echoes of pucks hitting boards. As we got ready, there was a definite sense of girding one's loins for battle. All the pads, the tape, the foil; everything you did to get ready basically said "You could get hurt here. And here. And here." Most of us had old equipment we hadn't thrown away because of moments like this. Even our brief hour of ice time would grant the equipment a minimum ten-year reprieve from garage sales. Terry had an old scuffed-up helmet that may have been a prop from the original Mad Max movie. Jeff's shinguards were covered in so many layers of duct tape he could have played goalie. You could see mild apprehension on faces, even under the helmets and behind the wire masks. The ice is a foreign environment. You're basically walking on water. Really hard, slippery water. The nervousness dissipated in the typical locker room banter about the size of one's cup and who was wearing figure skates. Cousin Bob, who normally only sees ice in a margarita glass these days, was wearing a Minnesota Gophers jersey despite them losing the opening round of the NCAA tourney mere hours ago to some co-ed middle school team. One our goalies pulled on a Wisconsin Badgers jersey over his layers of pads. We deemed this a strategy to get people to hit him with the puck instead of shooting around him. There was the thump of the zamboni leaving the ice and we started to make our way to the rink. There's that moment of awkwardness when you first stand up on skates, like you're no longer suited for life on land. You wobble a bit, relishing your new height and make that transition step from the rubber pads to the ice, hoping you remembered to remove your skate guards. Then there's wind in your ears, you glide, you swoop, you stop on a dime in a shower of ice shavings, your eyes dart around and track down a familiar black disc and send it into the boards with a crack. You are twelve again. I can't remember who won or even if score was kept. There were no refs or face-offs, vaguely recognized offsides and most of the checking was accidental. But it was definitely hockey. By the end of our hour, my lower back muscles felt like they had been jabbed through with iron cables, my hips were bruised from numerous falls, my lungs were raw wool and my heart was so confused it wanted to come up and see what was going on. We were all totally knackered by the time the attendant blew the horn. And when he did, there was a collective groan. Not in pain, but a unanimous, unspoken wish for just a few minutes more of ice time. 10:08:27 PM    Say it don't spray it... []

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