By queer, delightful coincidence I decided at the last minute to don my Dale Hunter Quebec Nordiques sweater for my Sunday visit to Bugsy’s. I needed to remind the out-of-town friends I was meeting there that Bugsy’s was a hockey bar, even while every TV screen was broadcasting NFL football that day. I had a heavy flannel shirt on over my sweater, and the two hockey coaches were the first folks I saw in the bar as I walked in. I walked right up to the table where they were seated sipping cold ones and unveiled my allegiance.

“Now that’s old school!” the head coach said, smiling at his assistant.

I regaled the coaches with warm welcomes and then left them to their off-day relaxation. My friends, apprised of my stunning good fortune, implored me to return to the coaches’ table and request a photo, and for the legend to sign my sweater, and I confess, I gave it a brief moment’s consideration. But I’ve been imbued by a modicum of media professionalism working with the Capitals’ media relations team in recent years, and more importantly, I’m a big believer that our sports heroes need come space out in public to be just like us, free from memorabilia pleadings and such. For me on Sunday it was more than enough thrill to shake the legend’s hand and say, “Welcome home.”

If you’ve been to Bugsy’s just once you know that owner Bryan Watson has made it a shrine of sorts to our sport. My football-loving friends on Sunday were stunned by the framed photos of brutally beaten up ice warriors that gloriously clutter Bugsy’s walls. I’d forgotten, but Dale Hunter’s home white Capitals sweater is encased and hung prominently in the bar. Sunday I really enjoyed looking at that historic sweater and seeing the legend who wore it relaxing some 20 feet away. It was for me one of the more powerful proof points of our arrival as a hockey town. A hockey town needs a hockey legend, of course, and better if he’s actually in town and once in a while out and about so that soldiers can stop by his table and salute him.

I’ve been around Alexander Ovechkin, one of the greatest hockey players in the world, a great deal the past five years, literally hundreds of up close encounters in Capitals’ locker rooms. I’ve interviewed Sidney Crosby in the visitor’s locker room at Verizon Center. I’ve chatted up Bryan Murray and Peter Bondra and famous New York Times reporters while being credentialed to cover the Caps. None of those experiences delivered anything approaching the exhilaration I experienced with my proximity to Coach Hunter on Sunday. It seems silly, and then it doesn’t.

For the first time since I started blogging with credentials I felt awestruck Sunday, but in a good and healthy way. I was quasi-trembling for nearly three hours seated almost immediately next to the new coach. I knew that no other coach, no other figure from the Capitals’ past, could make me feel that way. Distracted as I was, I had difficulty listening to my friends’ conversation with any fidelity. Obviously I didn’t give a damn about the football overhead.

There’s just something about this moment, and that set of silver hair, and those steely blue eyes conveying still a warrior’s intensity, even in Sunday relaxation; just something almost notoriously novel in his being here, right now, taking charge of these Washington Capitals. I know that George McPhee believes it, but my belief is rooted largely in devotional faith, not any objective, dispassionate analysis. And I’m not apologizing for it.

On Sunday I liked a lot that over the course of about three hours the coach, seated with his assistant and later joined by Bugsy himself, never once glanced up at all the football on all the TV screens. The hockey men were there to toss back a few cold ones and . . . talk hockey. On their day off.

Understandably, at so critical a moment for the Capitals, we all want hard and fast evidence that this momentous change will deliver the goods, that this particular change is paramount among final tinkering by George McPhee with his grand design. It is our fervent hope. But of course we can’t know, not before next spring. Instead, we’re supposed to relish all the drama fraught with the unknown journey. For this hockey fan, Dale Hunter’s return home, to lead, is an unmistakable signal that our hockey culture is changing, already, and this Christmas that’s good enough for me.

Angela’s family has 10 seasons tickets for the Hershey Bears. That’s but one of a couple of hundred novel facets signifying my lottery ticket number being called in meeting her. Some manner of family summit took place in early September to discuss how best to use an un-accounted for 10th ticket. It was determined that I would have it. Can’t say I’ve encountered family generosity quite like that before. Angela went to Giant Center during Bears’ training camp to retrieve her family’s tickets. That’s a very special evening for Hershey’s hockey fans, as they go down on the arena ice and are handed their tickets by individual Bears’ players, with photo-ops accompanying. Angela is a beauty one’s eye remembers long after an initial meeting, but Francois Bouchard saw her just as he had in previous Septembers and spoke up with concern: “If you don’t mind my saying, something doesn’t look quite right.” Angela briefly explained her new challenge. Bouchard then motioned over Graham Mink. Then more Bears players enveloped her in a circle of concern. Angela was very excited as she relayed this moment to me over the phone on the ride home.

Of course, the patronage of hockey games together this autumn is a far-fetched dream for Angela and me. Six days a week, alternating between chemo and radiation, she endures four-hour treatments at the Hershey Cancer Institute. Some days she can do no better than digesting a banana. I’m happiest this autumn when her text messages relate entire breakfasts consumed and kept down. What should be a spectacularly beautiful and fit frame of 130-plus pounds is today a spectacularly beautiful warrior’s frame of less than 100 pounds.

That life-altering August Friday the first person I reached out to in my frightened agony was my blessed puck chum goalie of a beauty queen, Tara Wheeler. When Tara was Miss Virginia and competing in the Miss America pageant a few years ago she seized a mission to immerse herself in the cancer wards for children at hospitals all over the state of Virginia. And I mean all over the state. I doubt there was one she didn’t visit. Most memorably, after her run at the pageant title, she shaved her head in a show of extraordinary solidarity with the brave children. She made national television appearances for it.

I remember not having the courage to call Tara initially, as my friend had never heard me sob. Silly notion. Our call lasted approximately 25 minutes, and the crying felt good, and I remember how there wasn’t more than a few seconds of commiseration before Tara issued me unmistakable marching orders. This wasn’t a moment to wallow in self pity, as sad as such news is, she delicately but forcefully explained. The partner against cancer plays an exceptional role, a durably taxing role, she explained. One of unwavering sustenance and optimism and encouragement. For the partner, it’s a bit of a poker table requiring all chips in, so right this moment, my friend told me, you have to decide if you’re all in. I hung up the phone with my pal, sobbed for about two minutes more, fell asleep deeply, and awoke Saturday morning calm and seemingly battle ready — knowing of course my engagement with this challenge was ludicrously limited relative to what Angela was confronting.

This autumn, instead of composing blog files, I compose love letters. I’d have done that anyway, but I seem to have energy and interest only for writing to Angela. A couple of weeks after my phone call with Tara, after I’d received a text from Angela that she was shopping for a wig with her mother, I wrote Angela and told her about the time I saw my friend Tara step onto the ice at Verizon Center and belt out the most beautiful rendition of our national anthem I’d ever heard, the arena ceiling lighting well illuminating the peach fuzz on Tara’s head. I looked down from the press box in that moment and tears streamed down my cheeks, because my friend, in her baldness, never looked more beautiful.

Another fortification for my fright-fight this fall: the return of Eric McErlain to my 18th St. office in Northwest. Long-time readers will recall my bragging about having Eric as a close-by colleague some four years ago. I met and befriended Eric in the Verizon Center press box. I learned about hockey blogging seated next to Eric. I became a hockey blogger in large part because of Eric. More importantly, I was blessed by his friendship. I once wrote a file here bragging about what it was like to come to the office every day and share the day’s first cup of coffee with one of the most accomplished hockey hearts and minds in new media. Eric left our office a few years ago for an exciting new challenge. Now he’s returned, and again he’s immediately next door to me.

Eric knows I can’t be in rinks this season as I’ve grown accustomed to being, thanks to the Capitals, and he knows precisely what I need with each and every coffee and lunch outing — my puck fix. I genuinely believe that God returned EMac to my office this autumn for a role well beyond managing our industry’s pressing need for deft stewardship of social media. I also don’t believe he’s leaving my office again any time soon. Thank God.

Rather impulsively one day this autumn I gave a reckoning of my anxiety to another great buddy in pucks, a fella named Killer. Week after week had passed with hardly an iota of complaint from Angela of what she was enduring; I was beyond inspired. I wanted the tough guy ex-Cap to know about the battle she was bravely waging. “You’re gonna love meeting her,” I wrote. “Send me Angela’s address,” one of the Capitals’ all-time great warriors texted me from his team’s bus. I knew what was coming next. In the package Killer shipped to Angela he penned an inscription on one of his warrior photos themed on how the biggest fights sometimes are waged by those in the smallest frames. Killer knows a thing or two about that. I regarded that outreach as a love letter in its own right.

A week or so ago I messaged Killer to give him an update on our region’s increasing concern with the struggling Caps. “Ok,” he replied. “Now tell me what really matters — how’s Angela doing?”

This fall I notice a lot my pacing in a path opposite that of the Red Army on game nights. It’s an odd experience, after marching with them all these years. None of them know it but they are all my friends, as this autumn has verified. I’m looking forward to rejoining them just as soon as I can.

Alumni game pride drives Killer in his daily training regimen

Probably about two  months ago, reading something on this blog, I first learned of the first-ever Capitals Alumni game. I fly into town this week to participate, and I’ve been looking forward to Friday night pretty much all summer. As soon as I learned about the game I knew that wanted to come right away, but I wasn’t sure of my schedule at the time. I’m coaching the Louisiana Ice Gators. I am so grateful it has worked so that I can come back and play and see all the old Caps fans. So thanx OFB for tipping me off! I’ll get in town Thursday night. I believe the Caps have some stuff going on for us old timers both before and after the game; am waiting on an email about that.

It’s actually going to be a very special weekend for Caps alumni. I will be at the Caps Convention all day Saturday to meet and greet all the fans, old and new. Whatever the Caps want me to do, I will do it.

You might wonder what we old timers do physically to get ready for a game like Friday’s. I know we’ll have hundreds, maybe thousands, packing Kettler-Capitals, and there’s a lot of pride at stake with a skate like this. Currently I skate three days a week here in Lafayette, Louisiana,  and get to the gym six out of seven days a week for spin class. But sure I’ll be winded. Hockey is always a competition for me.

I’m looking forward to seeing all of the guys — it’s been awhile since I’ve seen them. It’s always great to see former teammates . . . Bonzai, Locker, Langway, Cote — it’s going to be a blast to catch up with everyone, including the fans. I’m not sure who’s going to be on the bench as coaches. All I  know is the captains so far — Laughlin and Langway. There will be a lot of PRIDE at stake! I think it’s going to be a special night for the players but an equally special one for the fans in the stands.

I did skate with the Boston Bruins alumni back in Portland, Maine, last year (in Portland we won the Calder Cup as the Caps’ farm team), and that was COOL. But this one is SPECIAL cause this is where I played most of my NHL career and where I met so many great friends, and it’s is always special to come back to the city/organization that gave you that opportunity.

Last March I made my first visit back to Washington since I left the Caps, and I not only took in two Caps’ games that weekend but got a tour of the team’s training facility. So impressive. I’m sure it will be packed at that unbelievable facility. I’m just gonna go out there and play with the ‘Pride and Passion’ that has always been in me. I will make it exciting as always — a Gordie Howe hat trick would be the icing on the cake. I did that at a Bruins Alumni game not long ago, incidentally, LOL. It will be a BLAST.

I’m sure I’ll be full of “piss and vinegar” as always when I get a chance to play, but I’m hoping to stay out of the box . . . (maybe) : ) Problem is, Bill McCreary is officiating! Oh,well.

The OFB teams asked me about pranks from my Caps’ playing days that I might discuss. I was never a prankster, but there were some great ones . . .  but none I could share . . . Sorry! 

Even though I’m in Louisiana during the hockey season I do get to follow the Caps a decent bit on TV. It’s a huge year for the guys, obviously. Gabby wasn’t coach of the year for nothing. He’s a great players’ coach. He came in and gave that team confidence and let them play to their strengths a few years back. It was an amazing turnaround to watch. As a coach, I’ve tried to pay close attention to what Gabby’s been doing in D.C. They have been so close, and I believe the defense will be a great attribute. (As long as everyone is committed.) I was always told “offense wins you games and defense wins you championships.” Gabby has a great knowledge of the game and knows what to do and how to adjust to situations . . . Go Caps!

This weekend I’m looking forward to meeting fans who remember the good old days at Capital Centre but also the newest ones — especially the kids. When I meet the kids this weekend I’ll tell them I was a player who cared about the team. I was going to do whatever it took every night to sacrifice my body for my fellow teammates. To sum up: Heart, Passion, entertaining, physicality and Relentless work ethic. And I ENJOYED my job and I had FUN doing it.

The first time I spoke with OFB I told John about having a fight tape from my pro career, and I joked (maybe) that I’d pop it in the video player every time a guy came by the Killer house calling on one of my daughters. I have three beautiful daughters. I do have a 4-hour fight tape . . . perhaps fortunately I haven’t played it yet for a young fella. But it’s ready, they will have to come 4 hours early to watch the tape before any date . . . along with the double barrel shotgun that’ll be above the mantle or perhaps it will be getting cleaned that day on the kitchen coffee table . . .

Have fun on your date, fella.

Wednesday night I saw a memorable Capitals’ playoff game while chowing down on seriously tasty pizza at famed Bugsy’s in Old Town.

When you first step into the old brick building you know this is not your standard sports bar. The place is littered with old time hockey photos, framed newspaper clippings, and other distinctive puck memorabilia. There’s a classic black and white image of a noggin-battered Mr. Hockey that’s worth making the trip for. It’s locker room cozy, and immediately you know you are somewhere special.

Bugsy’s is a bit of homage to an area far north of here, and a time that is long past. One of indoor smoking, hockey players without helmets, and of course tailored to a sports bar crowd for whom hockey reigns supreme. It is like a little slice of Saskatchewan or Manitoba in our own backyard.

Established in 1983 by former Capitals’ defenseman Bryan Watson and Lindy Waston, Bugsy’s was an immediate staple in the region. Coming from an NHL career of more than 17 years with the Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit Red Wings and the Caps, it was clear Watson’s business venture would be dedicated to the sport of hockey. In fact, more than a decade after the pizzeria itself was opened an upstairs bar area known as the Penalty Box was opened. While it is now known as Bugsy’s Sports Bar, the place still holds true to its former hockey past, with walls lavishly littered with hockey mementos.

Wednesday night was my second experience in the hockey friendly bar, and it was even better than the first. Not only is the food down right solid, but the all-important beer selection is something almost no one else in the area offers. There should be a law that mandates watching playoff hockey with a Labatt Blue in your hand, and Bugsy’s has it. Sure, it’s not the best beer in the world, but it is a very hockey beer.

Obviously the food, drink, and atmosphere is good, but the real draw  of Bugsy’s is the devotion to hockey, and that’s  why I went there again, to eat well and take in a big game in an establishment where hockey is revered.

Bugsy’s has an assortment of about 20 flat panel televisions throughout the one floor bar area. While baseball was on when my party first arrived at about 6:30, it certainly was not on at 7. The Caps’ game dominated the family of televisions, but I was also able to slightly turn my head to the right and watch Buffalo beat Philadelphia and Tampa Bay fall in double overtime. Heaven. And piping hot pizza and cold beer was ever at the near.

The fact that I could watch three hockey games at one time I found remarkable at a D.C.-area tavern. Any other establishment in D.C. may have had the Caps on, but I guarantee you at least one of its TVs would have featured the NBA. Their playoffs are going on too, you know. But not at Bugsy’s, not on Wednesday night.

The only downside to the entire evening was the presence of a few Flyers and Penguins fans, one of which went home quietly wile the others were drowned out by everyone else watching the Caps’ thriller. That said, it wouldn’t be a worthwhile and distinctive outing if the enemy wasn’t heckled a little bit right?

Between the second and third periods there was a roar coming from the bar that immediately caught my attention. It was clearly a siren but I could not figure out where it was coming from. Not long after the siren started a red light sprung to life above the bar, and it was then I learned that the siren was not from an Alexandria fire engine, like I originally thought, but instead the bartender controlling a goal siren. While the Caps had yet to light the lamp in the game, that didn’t stop a Bugsy’s bartender from trying to send a few good vibes the team’s way.

Those good vibes certainly paid off too, as the Caps clawed their way back. During the comeback Bugsy’s felt like Madison Square Garden or the Phone Booth with its crowded passion and siren and light that was finally lit on Alex Semin’s goal. In fact, as Washington began to pile up the goals in the 3rd, the combination of the siren and the patrons made it seem louder than MSG itself. Maybe it was the building that made it seem that way, but whatever the reason it sent shivers down my spine.

The evening concluded with the place erupting into an explosion of cheering and high fives as Jason Chimera concluded the “Miracle on 34th Street,” as Steve Kolbe so accurately called it. Five hours after I had entered the little outpost of hockey heaven, I left victorious and feeling like I had just been to Canada and back.

Bugsy’s is certainly a gem in Virginia and a regional treasure that should be held dear by the region’s puckheads. It is clear any hockey fan is welcome, although if you’re from Philly or Pittsburgh don’t be surprised if you’re not shunned a little. Your pizza might even be delivered to your table slightly cool. If you are looking for a place to hold up for an evening of postseason puck, or puck at any time of year, look no further than Bugsy’s.

[For a wonderfully detailed look at what Bugsy's is like be sure to check out Mike Vogel's video tour of the place.]

It probably is most often hockey fans every spring who are the deepest sleepers on the early morning trains. Hockey’s playoffs exact a heavy toll on the devoted. Don’t disturb them. They’re dreaming of more high drama heroism in sports’ most taxing and exacting examination.

Dad was skating his weekly game with the GeriHatricks out in Laurel. Nearing 70, he’s a bit of an elder statesman in the skate, but certainly not the oldest.

It hasn’t been a good year for blueliners in D.C. On the injury front, and Dad,a rearguard, rang me to inform that he’d broken his leg quite near the end of the morning skate. Badly. His tibia and shin bone are fractured cleanly. The good news is that two of Dad’s teammates are still practicing surgeons, and another is an EMT. He got excellent care from them in the locker room before the ambulance arrived. He sounded good when I rang him back this afternoon. He goes to see an orthopedist tomorrow.

Needless to say, going forward, I won’t be treating voicemail from my father, or any other member of my family, as a task to get to just as soon as I’ve fulfilled professional obligations. With one email back to the office I could get out of this trip and in my car and down to Dad in three hours’ time, but he’d have none of that. He was Purple Heart in Vietnam, and on the phone today joking about how he’ll see more playoff puck on TV this spring in his recovery.

We’ll talk about his pans for next season when I get back.

Update (4/6): Firstly, here and elsewhere, especially in social media, I’ve benefited greatly from the well-wishing of the OFB family of readers. It is deeply appreciated. Dad today is in a hard cast from the base of his toes almost up to his hip. In about two weeks’ time he’ll be re-examined and, assuming the healing process is proceeding, transitioned to another, more modest-sized cast. No surgery is envisioned, which is a gigantic relief. Some of his teammates on the bench during the skate claimed they actually heard the break from some 100 feet away. That gives me shivers. But the old dog has his spirits, and watching very winning Capitals’ hockey is surely helping.

A native of Fairfax, I’m a Caps’ diehard and ever have been since the age of 4. That was the age when I attended my first Caps’ game at Capital Centre back in 1984. My father was, at the time, an Army doctor stationed at Walter Reed Medical Center. He and a bunch of Army buddies decided to get a block of tickets to a Caps/Oilers game (or so my dad says). I tagged along, and that’s when my love affair with the greatest sport on the planet began. I can vaguely remember bits of the game, but what stands out for me still was the sheer terror I experienced whenever the Caps would score a goal. The siren would go off, the red goal light would flash, and the crowd would erupt. I would try to pull my father’s leather jacket over my eyes in order to hide from the sound, which, of course, didn’t work.

Thankfully, though, I got over my fear and have been to countless Caps games over the years. I remember the 8-0 victory over the Penguins at Landover. I remember the Caps/Flyers tilt that set a record for penalty minutes (313 or something). I remember all the losses to the playoffs to the Penguins, Islanders, Rangers, etc. I remember the sheer joy of Joey Juneau’s OT goal against Buffalo, and I remember being at game 4 against Detroit and watching the Wings lift the Cup on our ice. I remember when Ovechkin had more than 4 power play goals in a season, but I digress . . . I remember all of it.

I’m now 30 years old and I followed my father’s footsteps into the U.S. Army. I’m currently stationed out at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, as a member of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps. I still make sure to catch as much Caps’ action as I can (thank you, Slingbox!)

On this anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, I thought it would be important and fun to share a story about the effect of the game abroad, related to me by a family friend. Our friend, who happens to be a Ranger fan (nobody’s perfect), can absolutely vouch that the story is true. At the time, he was in the Navy and was attached to a naval carrier group that was located somewhere in the Gulf of Aiden off the Coast of Yemen. (He’s well into his fifties now.) If his memory serves him well, he was aboard the USS Coral Sea at the time.

In 1980, the Internet as we know it today, along with iPhones, email, etc., obviously did not exist. Sailors aboard ships had no easy way to find out news from back home; information was passed on to the ship’s captain, who would then pass it down to the rest of the ship. Of course, this was a terribly slow way to deliver information, especially when compared to the immediacy of today. Naturally, announcements about a hockey game were few and far between. Back in 1980, however, apparently the sailors aboard had some vague idea that the U.S. hockey team was playing the Soviets in a pivotal game, but they had no idea as to the score or the winner. So when that unlikely group of college kids shocked the Soviets, the sailors aboard had no idea that the U.S. had just shocked the world.

Not the aircraft involved.

Sure enough, a day or two after the Miracle on Ice, a Soviet patrol was spotted near the U.S. carrier. Like many times before, an American jet was scrambled for escort purposes. Except this time something extraordinary happened. As my friend told me, when the American pilot contacted his Soviet counterpart, the Russian pilot responded by congratulating the Americans for their hockey team’s victory over the Soviets in the Olympics. When the American pilot landed, he passed on word to his countrymen that we  had won, and the ship erupted in cheer. And to think, how the ship found out that we had beaten the Soviets. From a Soviet fighter pilot!

The two mortal enemies, the proverbial ‘tips of the spears,’ meeting eyeball to eyeball over international waters during the height of the Cold War, not long after the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan. And the Soviet pilot congratulated the Americans for their victory! Give credit to the Soviet pilot, obviously a hockey fan, for displaying a small measure of humanity, grace, and sportsmanship during what must have been a difficult time for the Soviets (as if it were ever easy or enjoyable). It’s amazing that the result of a simple hockey game may have thawed the ice between two mortal enemies, if only for a fleeting second.

So when you remember 1980, please keep this story in mind. The victory by the Americans at Lake Placid was no doubt a Miracle on Ice. But it inspired a much smaller miracle, far removed from the mountains of upstate New York . It inspired a ship full of Americans who were proudly serving their country. It demonstrated that, despite the intense hatred on both sides, our Soviet rivals weren’t all the monsters they were made out to be. And we have a plucky bunch of college kids, with a gruff head coach, to thank for it.

In Monday night’s second period, with the game scoreless and the Pens holding a decisive edge in shots and scoring chances, Matt Bradley did what many in the NHL have wanted to do for years and in the process reversed the game’s momentum: he punished filthy Matt Cooke. Cooke, you’ll recall, did his level best to take out Alexander Ovechkin with an extended knee the last time these teams met. He kept up his dirty play and soon thereafter and was suspended. Matt Bradley carried a long memory into tonight’s game and waited to extract frontier justice in defense of his teammate. And despite the penalty he incurred on the hit, it was a clean hit.

Seasons of meager achievements gain meaning from such moments. And moments after Brads left the penalty box, he was forced to own up to his largely clean hit: Ryan Craig came calling, and Brads answered — in resounding fashion.

Let’s keep a close eye on what this hockey team achieves hereafter. Monday night we may have witnessed a turning point in a largely undistinguished season, and if so, Matt Bradley deserves credit.

OFB blogger and reader, in middle age, need very nearby benches as respite during weekend shinny

“The truth is with fickle winter weather and a lack of hockey tradition, real Maryland pond players are as far apart as Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin’s front teeth,” observes Candus Thomson, in her gorgeously written January 30 Baltimore Sun feature on Maryland’s dedicated shinny skaters.

We about the region in touques and hockey sweaters praying for low winter temps possess a special devotion and, irrespective of our age, a child-like zeal for seizing the fleeting frozen conditions on local ponds and collections basins, Thomson discovers in her piece.

“The pond hockey season below the Mason-Dixon line can have the lifespan of a mayfly, so [shinny skaters] embrace the moment with all the energy of an end-to-end rush,” she notes.

“This is hockey as nature intended: pure, uncomplicated, joyous. No one complains about having to shovel the surface clear of snow or when slush soaks sweatpants as a skidding puck throws up a rooster tail of spray. Backpacks and winter boots mark goals and everyone is a referee.”

In her survey of solidly frozen local water bodies patronized by outdoor puck lovers, Thomson happened upon a figure of distinctive devotion, 56-year-old Bill Eckert, the “unofficial commissioner” of pond hockey in Maryland’s Carroll County.

“Each year as the calendar reaches its final days, Eckert keeps an eye on the thermometer. After a week of sub-freezing weather, when the ice grows thicker than a man’s fist and safe enough to skate on, he begins calling friends and neighbors and rounding up his children.”

“If you’re still a kid at heart, it’s still fun. It feels good afterward and you sleep good at night,” the commish told the Sun reporter.

Truer words were never spoken. A semi-senior circuit skater on ice sheets indoor and out myself, I can attest: my best nights’ sleep this winter have been on weekend evenings after a morning’s skate of local shinny. My stride lacks its burst of 10 years ago, my middle-age weight restricts my endurance in ways I care not to acknowledge, my reaction times in traffic are diminished, but my boundless appreciation for feeling that frigid air fill my lungs as I chase pucks on sheets without zones and referees feels as fresh and innocent as it did three decades ago.

Five hundred-plus miles to our north, on the same weekend as the Sun’s profile of shinny’s shine, arrived a fresh tale of terrific Arctic air avocation and recreation: up in Portland, Maine, one local successfully petitioned city government to support the construction of an outdoor rink set above a beautiful bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The Portland Press Herald’s Dierdre Fleming details the shinny-devotion of Portlander Michael Roy in her feature ‘Must have ice.’

“Michael Roy’s addiction,” Fleming writes, “started four years ago. And it is an addiction, this pond-hockey love, his ice rink devotion, this nice-ice fix Roy needs four months of the year . . .

“Roy is the kind of hockey fan who goes around looking for open fields, envisioning hockey rinks, dreaming of ice sheets in more backyards.”

So thoroughly successful was Roy’s passion-pursuit in Portland that he even lured the local fire department into flooding his newly constructed rink with 28,000 gallons of water.

” On Jan. 22, when the rest of Maine was fearing the negative-zero temperatures to come, Michael Roy was smiling,” Fleming observes.

“The two perfect words I heard the weatherman say,” Roy told Fleming, ‘Arctic cold’.”

Roy actually has two sheets of ice up in Maine to maintain for his hockey heart’s skates all winter long. His two daughters at home like to skate. Naturally, they have a backyard rink for their use, maintained by dad.

“Since he built his first home ice rink for his two daughters four years ago, Roy has fallen into the winter ritual: checking the ice first thing in the morning and right before bed; going out to rake and pour hot water on it. It is a ritual rooted in nature, as natural as the tides.”