I took the Easton aluminum with its plastic blade out of my Jeep and leaned it against Dad’s garage yesterday. Riding home across the Bridge this morning I realized that I’d left it behind, then immediately smiled realizing that this was that rarest of Washington winter weeks, when street hockey sticks won’t be needed by the weekend.

I want from life this week not four or six standings points for my team but one more walk alongside my father toward our favorite form of recreation, this time a walk we’ve never made: down his property’s slope, skates slung over our shoulders, layered in turtlenecks and bulky sweaters and bluejeans, with a one-year-old lab hell-bent on completing our line. With his arthritic hands and aching back it’s literally the case we’d spend more time gearing Dad up than we would out on the ice tossing passes to one another. Neither of us, I don’t imagine, would complain much about that.

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Posted at 10:18 am. Filed under Morning cup-a-joe, Pond Hockey, Shinny, Washington Capitals.
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7 Comments

  1. Hockey Amor wrote:

    Thank you for an inspiring story. We tend to forget that hockey is meant to be played outside.

    Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 11:27 am | Permalink
  2. Rage wrote:

    Dammit, I really need to learn how to skate so I can write stories like this one day… or at least my son could write them.

    Stupid Brooklyn/Manhattan and their lack of cheap skating lessons.

    Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 11:55 am | Permalink
  3. mankato_maverick94 wrote:

    I understand your story: As a child growing up in the Land of 10,000 Frozen Ponds, we often took our gear with us…Dad would stop the station wagon in the middle of nowhere (Grandma’s swedish meatballs would have to wait) and we knew that it was time to lace up the skates and grab our sticks for a blistering cold but memorable afternoon.

    Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 12:09 pm | Permalink
  4. CapsChick wrote:

    What a beautiful read.

    I’ve never had a knack for skating and growing up in suburbia offered little in the way of frozen rivers on which to do so, but I can appreciate the simple joy of it…not to mention the joy of spending time with a parent doing something you both truly love.

    Oh, and Mystery, Alaska? Has to be one of the most underrated hockey movies ever made and one of my personal favorites - its inclusion here made me smile!

    Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 3:50 pm | Permalink
  5. hack27 wrote:

    I was not born of a hockey family I came about it with my friends. I’ve never played pond hockey. However, my son is almost 5 and everyday we drive by one of those neighborhood frozen drainage ponds. While it’s nice going to the local ice rink, I fantasize about taking the boy out skating on the pond so he can experience ice skating as it’s truly meant to be, not in generic ice rink with bad music and confining walls. But out in the open, in the sun, with the wind in your hair and the cold on your face. I love winter!

    Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 4:14 pm | Permalink
  6. Bob D wrote:

    It’s “dangling time”! Whoot whoot!

    Wednesday, February 7, 2007 at 12:23 am | Permalink
  7. pepper wrote:

    My parents live on the eastern sho’ too, in St. Michaels.

    In nearby Easton, there’s a fantastic community center with a rink for hockey and a sheet for curling (!) Beauty! Have you seen it?

    http://www.talbotcountymd.gov/index.php?page=Community_Center_Ice_Rink

    Wednesday, February 7, 2007 at 12:42 pm | Permalink

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