A book suggestion for journalism teachers

[Mike Gange]

 

Hitting the Open Ice

By Mike Gange

I haven’t skated in fifteen years. I stopped refereeing minor hockey games when we had children.  Somehow getting up to go to the rink for a six a.m. game lost its appeal after a few sleep-deprived nights with a new born. Aside from some Christmastime games of shinny or the odd visit to someone’s frozen pond, I pretty well hung up my skates.

I didn’t actually hang them up.  I put my kangaroo leather, heat-formed, molded-to-my- feet CCM skates on a basement shelf, right next to my old pair of Lang’s, which are  skates with a hard plastic shell and soft foam inserts. I had this pair back when I was in university. It was down there in the basement, next to my summer tires and camping gear that I found my 15 year old skates beside my nearly 40 old skates.

I read in the almanac that this was going to be THE year for outdoor rinks. Lots of snow to make a good base, lots of cold to make good ice. I was determined to get out and go for a skate, maybe play a little hockey, nothing serious, just some winter fun. This was the year winter was not going to stop me, I decided, after reading the almanac.

The first two times I wore my “newer” skates. I came to appreciate that kangaroos don’t live in Canada by choice – too cold for their hides, I guess – and kangaroo leather skates are not the kind to wear when the temperature outside is minus 20 Celsius, and you are going to skate on an outdoor rink, changing from your boots to your skates while perched in a snow bank alongside the rink. It took me twenty minutes to get into those kangaroos. I decided one day to try the old Lang’s – surprisingly, the blades were still sharp – and I haven’t looked back. I am able to wear my old skates without sox, because my feet are warm as toast and the foam lining absorbs the sweat. Best of all, they go on without my fingers becoming  useless, frozen appendages.  More time spent skating, less time spent trying to jam my feet into those reluctant kangaroos. 

There are some things the body never forgets. The feeling of long strides, swishing side to side, as the skater propels himself forward, faster in the length of a hockey rink than one could run the length of a basketball court. The feeling of arms swinging freely, pumping air to the lungs, but moving in sync with the stride of the legs. The onrushing air on your chin, the freezing effect of the wind, enough to make cheeks and lips numb and speech difficult. The cold air making your eyes water, and the tears freezing to your face.

And there are some things the body has to re-learn. How to go in one long straight line  on one foot. Going leg over leg into a corner, accelerating away. How to jump on skates, the way one would begin a sprint in a foot race. How to get muscles in the upper leg to pump hard in acceleration for more than half a dozen strides without screaming in agony at the unaccustomed work load.

You never forget how to take the puck on your skates, kick it ahead to your stick, swing hard to your backhand, and snap it high up over the goalie. Its fun, and I feel like I have missed out on 15 years of fun.  

About the same time that I read the almanac, I got a copy of Open Ice: Reflections and Confessions of a Hockey Lifer by Jack Falla. Falla, who died in 2008, was an American writer from the Boston area, and for a long while he wrote for Sports Illustrated. Falla’s book is filled with essays, thoughtful pieces that seemed to match many of the things I was thinking or going through this year.  New skates or old? The magnificence, mystery and muscle of an NHL game vs the free-flowing feel of skates on a frozen pond. The power of the press box vs the general seating at a game. Professionals vs college kids. Legendary hockey heroes and their impact on today’s game. 

Falla’s thought provoking pieces can fill your head with ideas in the same way a good outdoor skate fills your lungs with oxygen. Open Ice: Reflections and Confessions of a Hockey Lifer is fun, the kind of fun so many of us might have forgotten, as we’ve left our skates on the shelf.

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Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism in Fredericton N.B. Canada