Nostalgia

Have you ever skated on an outdoor rink? Odds are no, since they are a dying breed. I did, however. Our rink at The Hill School was a covered outdoor rink. The rink was built in 1953 as a completely outdoor rink; a roof was added in 1965, and this continued to be the home rink until a new indoor one was built in 2006.

The rink at Hill was my favorite rink ever. The arch supports for the roof were wooden, and the rink was situated right next to the gym, which was built in the Depression, and at the far end of the rink there was an old brick wall that was also built during the Depression. It had a really old feel to it, which was awesome.

Playing on an outdoor rink is a unique experience. Unlike an indoor rink, where the temperature is conrolled, an outdoor rink goes with the weather. Our ice making equipment could maintain ice up to 70 degrees, so there were a couple of times where we walked to the rink in shorts and a tee shirt and then had to get in all that gear and go play. Talk about sweating your ass off. Conversely, there were times we played where the temperature was single digits. The water bottles froze in about five minutes, and the front of your jerseys would also freeze from any sweat you managed to produce. If it rained, the glass and ice fogged up and you could not see the other end. If it snowed, it felt like you were playing in the snow, which is unreal, becuase when people think about hockey in its purest form, it is playing on a pond in the snow.

My favorite exerience was playing at night. Walking to the rink, you suddenly saw a big bubble of light in the middle of the darkness, and a fresh sheet of ice begging to be skated on. Our locker rooms were about 75 feet from the rink, and we had to walk thru an open pathway to get there. For games, we would come out of the locker room into "the gauntlet," surrounded by darkness, heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Raucous students lined the walkway screaming their support. When we got to the ice, we would run through the door onto the rink to another rousing cheer that, if there were enough peoople at the game, could be heard all over campus. The fans standing on the metal bleachers were playing drums or banging hockey sticks onto the metal and shouting chants reminiscant to a European soccer match. There wasn't enough body to contain all the adreneline pumping through you. Words can't describe the experience; it is something you had to experience for yourself.

I really miss playing on that rink. The structure is still there to be used as a pavilion, but the boards have been taken down. It just isn't the same. Because of the global warming bullshit, many rinks that were once outdoor have been converted to indoor rinks in the past 15 or so years. It's a shame, playing outside was an experience.