Stories

Winter Lover - February 2025

The night before leaving on my last all-inclusive trip, I was shoveling after a huge snowstorm. As I was finishing up shoveling, I found myself out of breath on top of a snowbank taller than I am, sweating profusely, and then vomiting up that night’s supper. Instead of telling my wife I was sick, I decided that it was a better idea to stick with the plan, and take our two kids, aged 5 and 2 at the time, to Varadero Cuba the next day.

Leaving in February 2020, I’d like to tell you that vomiting on top of a snowbank was the low point of that trip, but it was more of a sign of things to come. After an invigorating 3-hour delay at the airport, once we landed in Cuba, our children survived the week on bread, cheese pizza and desserts. Our first activity was bringing the kids to the main swimming pool, but both found the water too cold, and decided they would not be swimming that week. Although this was both frustrating and surprising given a successful vacation in Cancun the year before, my wife and I rolled with the punches, and decided the beach would be a better bet. Sadly, after getting some sand between their toes, both kids swore off the beach. The only fun activities they were able to enjoy were waking up their parents every day at sunrise, and kicking around a half-deflated soccer ball we found floating in the ocean. The trip ended as promising as it started when my daughter wet herself in the airport while we waited for our delayed flight after she was too disgusted by the state of cleanliness of the airport washroom.

Five years later, and I’m sad to say there are no more family trips south in the winter. Instead of escaping the cold, I’ve been forced to embrace it as the father of a hockey-obsessed son, and a daughter who would much rather build a snow fort than a sand castle. After the 2020 disaster, we decided we’d replace sunny getaways with renting a cottage on a lake for a long weekend that had skating, tubing and snowshoeing. When I say ‘we decided’, I should clarify that I was the only vote for trying a new tropical vacation destination...secretly hoping that maybe it was just Cuba the kids didn’t like, instead of anywhere warm.

Despite my single dissenting vote, I’ve gradually converted to a winter loving person. I took up cross-country skiing, invested in fleeced-lined pants and mitts, and even find myself contemplating a new pair of skates as mine approach 30 years of age.

This week, after 60 centimeters of snow fell over four days, I once again found myself on top of a snowbank. Maybe due to the cross-country skiing, I wasn’t out of breath, and I managed to keep my meal down. Instead, after shoveling the driveway, I was watching my kids, now 10 and 7, take turns sliding down a snowbank at the end of our driveway head first on their sleds, laughing, and enjoying the day. Even with a lack of sun on my face, my smile was big enough that anyone could see I was loving winter.

Average Skater - January 2025

I was 10, on the ice of a tiny, boarded outdoor rink, just off the trans-Canada highway in Petawawa when I realized I was a horrible skater. Some kids from school and around my neighbourhood were playing pick-up hockey, and I went 30 minutes without once touching the puck. There were kids who I dominated in other sports, including road hockey, that were literally skating circles around me. My dreams of playing in the NHL died that night. The only saving grace occurred when I observed that all the really fast skaters kept very low in their stance, which helped them avoid falling when they changed direction, and evade other larger players. 

At 19, when I moved away to Ottawa for University, with the canal, the world’s longest skating rink in the winter, only a 5-minute walk from my residence room, I hadn’t anticipated becoming a better skater. However, one of my close friends was a former junior hockey player. After noticing that much like when I was running a 5km road race, I was basically running on skates, he introduced the concept of pushing with my right foot, and gliding on my left, into my skating repertoire. With his advice in mind, and five years of occasionally skating on the canal, my confidence on ice grew.

I became confident enough in my abilities on ice to actually have a couple of skating dates in my 20s and early 30s. One of those dates ended up being with my now wife. She grew up skating outside in Joliette on a surface similar to the canal, and I was secretly impressed with how she just kept going, no matter what obstacle she encountered on the ice. She had a very practical, effective outlook to skating, which I chose to incorporate as well.

When my son was around 4 or 5, to give my wife a break, I brought him to see his two older cousins play minor hockey. Given how much he idolized his older cousins, I shouldn’t have been surprised when he started to beg to play hockey. When we let him try a season at age 8, and I saw his huge smile, I knew I had officially become a hockey dad. He’s a much better skater than I am, probably the strongest on his team.

During the Christmas break, he invited his 10-year old friend over, and when my wife found his friend fit into my size 11 skates, she offered to bring him to the local rink so he could learn to skate. His parents were nervous since neither of them knows how to skate, but thankful that their son would get a chance. Since my son’s friend weighs about 120 pounds, my wife couldn’t support him to lead him around the ice. I ended up holding him up, leading him around the ice, and giving him the few practical tips I know that helped me become confident on ice. First thing, he had to keep his center of gravity low so he wouldn’t fall as often. When he stopped falling so often, I had him push with his right foot, and glide on his left. When I let go of his arms, and he tripped over the cracks on the ice, I told him to find a way around the various obstacles he was facing. My son’s friend won’t be playing in the NHL any time soon, but he’s on the road to becoming an average skater….even though his coach isn’t much more than that himself.