I was driving back from an Ani Difranco concert in Banff and listening to an unbelievable hockey game between the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks. Triple overtime and as goals were scored, people on the highway, passing at a 110 kilometres an hour, would cheer and honk their horns. I was just hoping that all the drivers would keep it on the road but it was great fun.
Beyond is located in Canada. You're going to get hockey posts. From Stuart McLean's Welcome Home-Travels in Smalltown Canada:
They have been playing hockey just down from the bridge since nine o'clock this morning. They used a sheet of plywood to push the snow off their rink. It took them about an hour. The ice is harder and smoother than you'd expect. A few nights ago John's dad chopped a hole in the river and brought a sump pump down and flooded the rink for them. He used a large squeegee to smooth the water off before it froze.
The boys have played all day. They didn't even stop for lunch. Once or twice when they were cold, "mostly on the chin," they went up to John's house and had a drink and warmed up. John lives right on the banks of the river. He has flooded a sort of chute down his front lawn so he can skate onto the river from his porch. Sometimes he climbs up to his house at supper time and eats dinner with his skates on.
The boys are wearing sweat pants and toques. John is wearing a red Chicago Black Hawks sweater. When they stop skating and stand in a group, leaning on their sticks, they look like veterans from the American Civil War.
They will keep playing until nine or nine-thirty tonight. There is a floodlight on a tree pointing towards the rink. John's dad put it up. But it isn't much help. It is so dark now that only a boy can see the puck.
