On Frozen Pond

If the months of December, January, and February make up the season of winter, then we are at the halfway point already. Snowshoes and skis will be put to good use as the days begin to lengthen again, but one winter activity that has gotten less playing time for me since I moved to Colorado is ice skating. When the landscape changed from flat to sloped, I guess it was inevitable that the blades wouldn’t get much use, but back in the day, ice was the vehicle for fun and adventure.

Recently on a trip back to Michigan, I was reminded that I grew up playing hockey. We were sitting in the stands at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit watching The University of Michigan play Boston College in The Great Lakes Invitational annual college hockey tournament and there was an eleven year-old kid watching the game a row in front of us. It was like looking in the mirror 40 years ago.

Playing Pee Wee hockey was an indoor activity played in an indoor ice arena, but we also played ice hockey in the woods across the street whenever Mother Nature cooperated. The ponds would freeze and we would spend hours and hours freezing as well as we scrapped out games against each other. Our hands and feet would get so cold that some of us even got a touch of frost bite every once and awhile.

To prepare for the winter, the entire neighborhood would venture out into the woods in late fall with garden rakes and try and clear the grassy marshes in hopes of creating a super ice rink. The native grasses if left to nature froze in the ice creating an un-skate-able surface. We would also maintain the woods ice by shoveling off new snow and using brooms to clean off the ice shavings from the games.

One year, a neighborhood kid’s dad made an ice rink in their backyard. He formed the edges up with snow and used a garden hose to spray water in the area to create the ice. It worked so well that I tried to create my own version on our patio. My mother actually let me connect a garden hose to the hot water heater and run a hose thru the kitchen and spray water out the window on to the patio. Most of the water ended up evaporating or seeping thru the clay patio bricks, but I did create enough ice one time to briefly skate on.

Our creek, the North Branch of the Chicago River, would freeze some years and you could literally skate out of town on this ice super highway. You had to avoid overhanging tree limbs and low bridges under streets, but when it was cold enough long enough, you could skate for miles and miles.

Here in Colorado, we have ice skated in the past at Beaver Meadows in the Red Feather
Lakes area. They have a nice little pond to skate on there. They rent ice skates
and have a warming hut near the pond when the cold winter wind gets to be too much for you. You can also cross country ski on man-made trails and tube down hills. Finally, there is a rustic restaurant to get a bite to eat or get a cup of hot chocolate at.

My step daughter and her boyfriend recently went ice skating inside at the Northern Colorado Ice Area near our home in Windsor. They had fun and both were quite proud of the fact that they didn’t fall. Maybe it’s time for me to get back in the game again…