the outdoor rink

We were watching the outdoor NHL game last night. I think it was Washington playing in Pittsburgh.
It reminded me of a story a good friend told me one time.

"In 1940, my parents rented one of the very few houses in the east end of Regina, Saskatchewan, right next to Wascana lake. Along the lake was a wide open stretch of land.  Us boys in the neighborhood took it over. We built a football field, a baseball diamond and a 3 hole golf course.

When winter came we decided we needed a hockey rink.  In those days people didn't have running water or sewer in their houses.  We had to haul water for drinking, cooking, laundry and bathing from a "standard" at the corner of each city block.  We decided to build our rink under the street light adjacent to the standard so we'd be close to our water source.  The first year we ended up with a kind of pond surrounded by snow drifts and we spent more time looking for the puck than we did playing hockey.  Next year, they were building "wartime houses" in the area, and a delegation of us asked the contractor for the concrete forms left over from poring the basements.  He agreed and all of a sudden we had a hockey rink with real boards.  The installation wasn't easy as we had to build supports to hold the boards and then freeze them in place.  But the parents pitched in to help and we got the job done.  It was becoming a neighborhood project.  I can't really remember if any girls were interested, but I don't think so. I would have remembered.
As we progressed to a regulation size hockey rink with real boards, we encountered new problems.  It was almost impossible to flood this rink from the "standard" because of the low water pressure.  So our delegation went to City Hall to see if the fire department would help us by flooding the rink from the fire hydrant across the road.  They agreed to do it right after freeze up.  The day they did it was a very exciting day for us.  All that ice, and the boards around the ice.  It seemed like a miracle.  And after another delegation, they flooded it one more time during the winter.
Every kid would be out there from early morning until dark on Saturday and Sunday and on week days we started playing hockey right after school.  Warm-up for the game was cleaning the snow from the ice with home made pushers.  As things progressed, we built a "shack" with a wood stove.  We'd all huddle in this primitive little structure and drink ginger ale and act like real hockey pros after a full day's practice session.  I can't remember where we got the stove, but it's amazing we didn't burn the whole place down.
I was never a very good skater, so I always ended up playing goal.  I would strap "Eaton's" catalogues to my legs with electricians tape and sealer rings - and the odd old pillow as a chest protector.  No head or face gear except for a toque.  As I remember, I was fearless, and to this day I can show you the indentations in my shins from those encounters.
We would spend hours on this rink, go home exhausted, and be right out there again next morning. We were extremely poor in those days, but in many ways our boyhood was full and rich, and I remember it with great fondness."
Such a good story of one man's boyhood in a Prairie town in the 1940's.
Our boys also played a lot of outdoor hockey when they were young. We lived in a little house close to the school rink, and they would put on their skates at home and walk over to the rink of an evening - play until the lights went out, and sometimes longer.  But in their generation, there was the big indoor fancy rink down town, and they would play school hockey there the odd time, or go to the "general skating" on a weekend. They would skate as long as allowed, and show off in front of the girls.
I read in the paper today, that boys hockey in Canada is not # 1 anymore.  It's soccer.  Very likely this is as much about money and the difficulty of getting on a team as anything else.
But for whatever reason, times they are a-changin'.