On Frozen Pond, The Movie

I wrote a post a while back called On Frozen Pond in which I waxed eloquent about the peculiar joys of hockey played outdoors. Of course that post was inspired by a unique series events that happened because of The Hockey Hymn, which was in turn inspired by skating on Ian Tamblyn's pond a few years ago.

Well, it's been another inspiring winter for that sort of thing. A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I did our ninth annual Rideau Canal skate... this time armed with ringuette sticks...


And finally, I took my American-born sweetheart on an excursion yesterday to the frozen wastes of Grenadier Pond. Every couple of years or so it gets cold enough for long enough to skate on this big pond in High Park, where the British colonial troops used to do their exercises.

For a guy who learned to skate on bobskates on Georgian Bay in a frigid February in 1971 or so... it's a return to cold hard heaven, complete with numb fingers and feet.

I had my point & shoot camera with me, and couldn't resist making a little home movie, complete with a shadow self-portrait. It's got the poignant faraway quality of those 8mm silent family movies from a generation ago.

I'm telling myself that amounts to necessary sentimentality.