I was at the Drylands Arena last weekend, watching people enjoy themselves during the “Skate with the RCMP” event, and as always when I enter the building, it brought back a host of memories.
I spent a lot of hours in arenas in my youth. Part of the time I was trying — unsuccessfully — to learn to skate in a manner that didn’t make it look as if I was having a seizure, but most of the time I was there because of my brother, who played hockey, or because of my dad, who refereed junior hockey throughout much of my young life.
I didn’t know who was playing most of the time, unless it was my brother’s team, and didn’t really care, because the game wasn’t the point. It was a chance to do something on a weekend, and spend time with Dad, so I’d bring a book and sit in the stands, dividing my time between reading and watching the game, getting up now and then to move around get the feeling back into my feet.
Between periods I’d go to the refs’ dressing-room and get $1 to buy popcorn and hot chocolate for me, and Wrigley’s Double-Mint gum for my dad (this was in the 1970s, when $1 stretched a long way). I came to know the smell of an arena, which is indescribable, but which I would recognize anywhere. Blindfold me and take me into an arena, and I would know exactly where I was, even without the sound of the Zamboni or the swish of blades on ice.
Despite only paying cursory attention to what was happening during games, I absorbed a lot. I learned the rules of the game well enough to spot an offside play before it was whistled down while I was still in single digits, and could tell you what a penalized player was heading off the ice for before it was announced, just by noting what hand signal the ref gave. When we lived in Ottawa, and many of the players were from Québec, I picked up a nice line in French swear words, and I loved the mesmerizing sight of the Zamboni making its ever-decreasing circles between periods, and always leaving that one little strip down the middle that the driver had to circle back round to get.
When I got older, and Dad was head ref for the BC Junior Hockey League, I would help him make up schedules for upcoming games, slotting in the names of refs and linesmen. When I was 16 or so, one of Dad’s young linesmen, a year older than me, asked Dad if he thought he (the linesman) had what it took to be a professional linesman in the NHL. Dad said “Yes,” and the kid — whose name was Brad Lazarowich — pursued that career, going on to line more than 2,000 NHL games and officiating three Stanley Cup finals, the Memorial Cup, and two World Cup of Hockey tournaments. The lesson? Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams.
Alas, I was never able to pursue my dream, which was to learn to skate well enough to go end-to-end while stickhandling a puck. Girls, when I was growing up, didn’t play hockey; we had figure skates. I didn’t want to be a figure skater: I wanted to be … well, not a hockey player, because girls back then didn’t play hockey either, but I wanted to be able to skate like a hockey player did. What must it be like, I wondered, to skim along the ice, stick in hand, puck dancing around the blade as I eyed down the goalie and picked my spot!
There was one little girl at Drylands Arena at the weekend, no more than four, powering her way around the ice with all the confidence and skill of someone born with skates on her feet. I watched her with admiration tinged with just a hint of regret as she circled the ice: admiration for her prowess, regret for myself and what might have been. I’m too aware of what will happen if I fall, to try to learn to skate now, but there’s joy to be had in watching others do it. That’s good enough for me.