Ice Skating

Rideau Canal
Photos from Flickr's Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciaochow/2253712350/

I have never been a great fan of rolling or gliding across hard surfaces. Roller-blading and skateboarding are not sports indented for lanky people with bad knees. At least with surfing, you’re pretty much guaranteed to land on something soft.

Ottawa however has a “Canal Culture”. It’s the thing to do in the winter: skate down the Rideau Canal, eat Beavertails (registered trademark) and sip hot chocolate. When in Rome, I’m all about togas, so I gave it a go.

Beavertails on the Canal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr/2258634208/

We hired skates from a bike shop near the Pretoria Bridge and gingerly climbed down the steps to the ice. I have enough trouble walking on an icy “side walk”, so I felt vaguely uneasy about putting blades under my feet to make me slide more.

I strapped them on and moved my feet on the ice beneath the bench and thought, “This is a pretty unlikely form of transport.”

Unfortunately, my instructor hadn’t skated for over seven years and had little advice on the theory of how it was done, “I don’t know, you kind of move your feet in an “s”, like you’re doing the twist.”

As with anything that you learnt to do from a young age, it’s hard to explain. Could you tell someone how to ride a bike?

I moved forward about three metres and made a controlled fall. I lay on the ice and looked up at the sky, “This is a lot more agreeable. You go ahead, remember how it’s done, then come back and tell me.”

I sat and watched. There were scores of people: couples elegantly gliding up and down the ice hand in hand, teenagers with hockey sticks and grannies reliving their youth. Kids were being dragged behind parents on sleds or learning to skate with plastic stands – a sort of Zimmer frame for skating. Others wore helmets. One I saw had a full goalie’s mask. Dental care isn’t covered by the national health. That’s the time to learn to skate - while your bones are still malleable. Thirty-year-old Australians I decided, had no business learning to skate.

First skate of the Year

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alex_ferguson/3156701609/

I was very disturbed by the number of skating paramedics around. One of them pushed a sort of stretcher sled. Were there that many spinal injuries out here? This didn’t make me feel any safer.

Eventually Jay came along. He had taught people to skate before. It was too late though, my confidence had been shot, “Put one skate behind the other like a T and push”

“yaaarrar”

“Ok, if you don’t want to take your skates off the ice, try moving your skates in a C-shape,”

That was a bit more manageable, and with aides holding either arm, I made it shakily across to the other bank of the canal, “Where are we heading?”

“Just past that corner and then another 200m”

I looked back at the fifty metres I had just travelled, “You must be kidding! In the words of a great man ‘Fook that!’ I’ll see you at the pub, thanks anyway though.” They skated off with the ease and confidence that I knew would never come to me.

That’s fine with me. I’ll be happy to watch from the side-lines, sip the hot chocolate and warm up it with a dash of whiskey. My ice hockey career - over before it began.

Horizontal Skating