If The Template Fits

In yesterday's New York Times, Charles McGrath looked down from high on his East Coast perch and declared the days of outdoor hockey over. For everyone:

In the New England of my youth, back when we still had winter, ice--the kind you skate on--was as reliable as the calendar. It usually turned up overnight, smooth and glistening, the week after Thanksgiving, and it lasted, with perhaps a minor thaw or two, until Washington's Birthday at least. What you did every day back then was skate--which is to say, play hockey. After school, your mom dropped you off at the pond, the lake, the frozen river, the flooded playground, and she picked you up when it was dark. On Saturdays she made you a baloney sandwich to take along, but by the time you remembered to eat it, it was it was frozen hard as a puck.

Almost no one skates outdoors in New England anymore. People seldom do it even in Canada or Minnesota. For hockey players the indoor area has long replaced the backyard rink or the frozen prairie slough as the incubator of future talent, and even in those northerly climes skatable outdoor ice has become an uncertain commodity. Around here it's like oil, so scarce that its value goes up every year.

Hmmm....as someone who A. lives in Minnesota and B. has more than a passing interest in outdoor hockey, I have to call Mr. McGrath on his ill-informed observations. This year has been the best year for outdoor hockey in Minnesota in at least TEN YEARS if not more. We had early ice and we've had consistently good ice all season long. In fact the City of Minneapolis has just extended their outdoor ice operations for another week because of the favorable weather.

I know a group of guys who've been getting together every Saturday morning in the winter to skate (and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon) for years and this is the first year in some time that lack of cold weather hasn't been a problem at all. The only week that they weren't able to play was because of snow, not warm weather.

If I look out the front window of our house, I can see the neighborhood rink. And it's been open longer and used more this year than any other time in the last eight years. I haven't been able to get out nearly as much as I would like, but when I drive past rinks and ponds in the Twin Cities this year, I nearly always see people skating or playing pick up hockey.

While McGrath's piece does capture some of the joys of playing outdoors, his conclusion is drearily predictable:

But it wasn't nearly as much fun as skating outdoors. Nothing is--or nothing you do in daylight, anyway--and it's sad to think that the practice could one day die out, another casualty of global warming.

Perhaps Mr. McGrath should have been in Minnesota in January, when over a thousand skaters braved FIFTEEN DEGREE BELOW ZERO weather to play in the US Pond Hockey Championships. The only talk of global warming I heard there was sarcastic suggestions that Al Gore should have come out and dropped the opening puck.

It's interesting to note that anecdotal evidence that supports global warming is nearly always mentioned in the media, while anecdotal evidence--like this year's winter in Minnesota--that may call it into question is usually ignored.