French West Indian

December 20th, 2013 at 12:59 PM ^

...play a lot of hockey on farm fields.  Often a corner would be lower and it would collect the rainwater during the autumn and then freeze during winter.

But the absolute best was one year in which a farm field near my grandmother house had frozen.  Myself and a bunch of cousins had gotten new skates and on Dec 26, when we crossed over the rail tracks next to the field we were amazed to see an absolutely huge unblemished sheet of ice.  Spent every available minute over the next week out there playing up a storm.  Lots of informal hockey but the really cool thing is that the farm field was next to a small forest which had also flooded.  In other words when could ice skate through the forest.  Not exactly a rink of dreams but one of the favorite memories of my childhood.

Of course, vacation ended and we had to return to school but for about a week it was pretty magical.  I actually spent so much time wearing hockey skates (or boots) that week that when I return to school it felt really weird putting on basketball shoes again, almost like barefoot in comparison to the hard as wood, blister inducing cheap skates of yore.

Joined: 12/28/2011

MGoPoints: 1840

LSAClassOf2000

December 20th, 2013 at 1:14 PM ^

Major kudos to this dad for putting all the time into this. The photos of the shed interior were pretty cool too - loved the memerobilia on the walls. Nice touch indeed. 

Actually, I had heard of this rink before. The only reason I know of this place is because I work with someone who is both a big-time hockey fan and happens to live just down the road from this family, so he has mentioned this place. It sounded sweet, but obviously from the photos, it is exactly that. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130560