I wish I had a river

For the love of hockey and feminists, this Canadian gal finally taught herself to skate in her mid-30s. It's not that I had never tried before. When I was a child, there were always skates kicking around the house. "Girl skates" we called them: always white with that awkward claw of toe-picks that would force you to hobble-glide around the ice if by chance clutz and not lutz was your athletic destiny. It was clear from early on in my childhood that I was nothing more than a Katarina Twit. You'll still see women of my generation working their way around the rink using that tell-tale prissy hobble. I often wonder if those same women are soul sisters: bullied from the rec room by their brothers for asking too many stupid questions when the Leafs played the Habs; coerced into an interest in figure skating; and living for the winter Olympics just to watch the speed skaters fly.

Any skates I wore as a child were ill-fitting. As kid number 5, little was new, little was mine. When I did skate, it was never at a rink. No, "us kids" would trudge across two farmer's fields, dragging shovels, boards and skates to get back to the crick. My prairie husband might call the crick a slough. I don't know what your regional flourish is for a small pool of standing water in the middle of farm country.

We'd arrive at the crick tired from the knee-deep hike and then spend a half an hour clearing the ice before tightening our skates with knuckleless frozen fingers. Five minutes later, after falling repeatedly on the ice's wind-rippled surface, we'd head home for hot chocolate. I'd strip off my wet clothes at the register vent inside the back door and then sit in my underwear, nursing the warm choclately goodness while watching my thighs turn from pink to frost-patchy white to red before settling into their pale mottledness. The whole affair was a make-work production designed to make us patriots if perhaps not skaters.

In my 30s, I joined the Library School women's Co-Rec hockey team. The ability to skate was not a prerequisite in this league. Punny team names were, however, de rigeur. Sadly I cannot take credit for christening The Infomaniacs but my second team a year later, The Booby Orrs, that was all my doing. We were a mixed collection of academic feminists who actually did manage to bring a high degree of collegiality to team sports. And, when it came to skating, being on a hockey team changed everything. I had padding and a stick for stability. I had a purpose with rules to define it. At long last, I wanted to learn. I wanted to be a Canadian Amazon of the Ice. I began showing up for noon hour public skates. I started jumping the boards of my local outdoor community league at midnight. I sought advice: watch the bum of the skater in front of you to establish a rhythm; don't tighten your laces across the foot to prevent cramping but strap your ankles in with all your might, push your heels out from the bum on down to slow down quickly... And, dear readers, at long last I bought hockey skates--still used, but hockey skates nonetheless.

Little by little, I learned that wonderful rocking motion that feels a bit like oblivious escape. I lived in Edmonton at the time where I could skate on the lake at Hawrelak Park or go a few rounds on the Victoria Oval, places where you could build up speed and begin to lose yourself in thought. Outdoor skating offered clean fresh air and endorphins. Other people dream their wanderlust to being by flying to foreign lands. Not me. All I need is a clear, bright -10 day and a patch of unending ice.

Ah but then I moved out here to the Maritimes--where women's hockey is actually played by real Acadian Amazons NOT aging, pudgy feminists with a penchant for living life for its metaphorical resonance. My teammates had little time or sympathy for my spazzy stops and my inability to skate backwards. I spent one season miserable on a flatly named team that was filled with hyper-competitive asshats. I drove to games an hour out of town at 6 am on -20 January days. I practiced the drills. I ate the pizza and drank the beer. I hated every single minute of it.

Now, a few years after quitting, I guess I am a true Canadian skater at long last: you know, the kind of person who can only get access to ice time at public, noon-hour skates. As such, two lunch hours every week, I go around in tight circles, breathing Zamboni fumes and making friendly chit-chat. In this teetering obstacle course of fitness, I am surrounded by the Old Timer hot dogs who stop short of body checking in their efforts to claim ice real estate and by the teetering international students looking for the le vrai chose Canadienne--all the while surrounding the Intolerable Cranstons, figure skaters doomed to spin and leap at centre ice. Theirs is a circle of icy hell more circumscribed than mine. Yet, that rocking hockey motion is sufficiently seductive to keep me coming back week after week, year after year.

Each winter day, I dream of of lakes, rivers and canals, expanses of ice that promise a wintery escape.