When The Lake Freezes Over

Our lake finally froze.

Actually, this year we had the earliest hard freeze I can remember, followed by a complete January thaw. You know, it seems like everywhere you look, the weather is doing strange things - Midwestern tornados for Christmas, winter droughts, fires, floods.

But I guess you have to respect our nation's leaders when they say the jury is still out on the cause of all this. I mean, how can we really be sure that dumping millions of tons of industrial crap into the air will upset nature's balance? And while we're studying the problem, how can we possibly justify making rash changes that might save a few thousand species at the risk of jeopardizing the ability of energy company executives to keep using platinum dental floss?

But this column is not about all that stuff. It's about ice skating.

When my son was younger, I coached his ice hockey teams. This meant that several mornings every week, at about 5 AM, I would join a bunch of other dads carrying our lifeless little bundles of kid across frozen parking lots and into the rink, stuffing them into miniature hockey pads and skates, then shoving them out on the ice.

Playing hockey on a Zamboni-groomed indoor rink is great. You always have decent ice, the lines and nets are regulation, and you have those Plexiglas-topped walls to smash into when you want to scare your mom. You have benches where you can sit between shifts and have squirt-fights with the water bottles. And afterward, there's usually juice boxes and brownies in the locker room, so you can have a food fight while you're taking your skates off.

Skating on a frozen lake, you have to watch out for cracks, uneven spots, and the occasional jet ski embedded in the ice. If you're not careful, your puck can disappear into a snow bank,  lost until next July when you'll stub your toe on it sticking out of the sand in the shallows.

For goals you have to use traffic cones with a 2x4 propped across them, and you have to be sure you remember to hit the brakes before you sail out of the rink and into somebody's fishing shanty. Your nose and cheeks freeze numb, and you have to take a break every now and then to warm your hands and the toes of your skates on the bonfire made from the old dock section that finally broke for good last August.

And there's nothing in this world that's more pure, uncomplicated fun.

For years I kept a rink out in front of our house, investing a few hours each day in grooming and patching my several hundred square feet of hockey heaven. I kept heavy steel snow shovels stuck in the snow bank, and I passed a decree as Lord of the Rink that all were welcome, as long as they were willing to grab a shovel and skate a couple of human Zamboni passes.

So every afternoon the whole neighborhood would know the kids were home from school by the sound of shovels scraping along the ice. Then we would listen to the snick-snick-snick of little hockey skates and the shouts of little hockey stars, until it was too dark to have any chance of seeing the puck, and all the moms were tired of keeping dinner warm.

For my teams, every Sunday was Pond Hockey at Coach's House. One Sunday the team was in a tournament that involved an early qualifying game, with the finals in the evening. The kids came out to the lake after the morning game and skated nonstop until it was time to  head back to town. Then they piled into the cars with their heads steaming in the cold air, laughing and chattering right through the ride and the process of getting their uniforms back on for the playoff game.

Which they won.

Those kids are grown and gone now. I don't have to spend all that time clearing and grooming and patching the ice any more. I've given away the big old shovels, and I'm not even sure where my clipboard, my whistle, or my bag of pucks has wandered off to.

This morning I noticed that the neighbors a couple of doors down were out on the lake clearing a little rink. Now that I think of it, their kids should be getting just about old enough for their first skates...

You know, it's going to be mighty good to hear that snick-snick-snick again.