BCAA

hand to assess penalties (deducted from each of two-thirds of an NHL season played over a team's total goals at the game's conclusion). single weekend. Canada's National Pond In essence, it's very similar to the game of Hockey Championships, for example, attract shinny that Canadian kids more than 150 teams and have played since the early some 2,000 players to BIG-LEAGUE ACTION 1900s on neighbourhood >> The ever-growing popularity of pond Huntsville, Ontario. The rinks and local ponds and hockey tournaments in Canada and the U.S. Pond Hockey Champirivers, ignoring hunger and northern U.S. helped spawn the NHL onships in Lake Nokomis, cold until the daylight dims. Winter Classic, an annual U.S.-based Minnesota, are even bigger, As Reed notes, "Pond hockey event first staged on New Year's Day in with 250 teams. There is takes you back to the time 2008, with regular-season games also the World Pond Hockey when Mom was calling you, played outdoors. Though largely Championship in Plaster telling you to come in and derived from Canada's annual outdoor Rock, New Brunswick, Heritage Classic (established in 2003), you never would. It takes you which claims its inaugural the Winter Classic has so far featured back to the roots of hockey." tournament in 2002 kickonly U.S. teams; the Heritage Classic started the sport. involves Canada-based teams. Though most of the clubs JUDGING BY THE PHENOMENAL >> The sport also inspired the 2008 at the World Championship growth of pond hockey tourAmerican documentary Pond Hockey, hail from North America, naments in recent years, a which examines the changing culture 2012's roster includes squads lot of folks are eager to recon- of pond hockey, interwoven with the from Singapore, Puerto Rico, nect with those roots. Only a story of the first U.S. Pond Hockey Denmark and even the decade ago, these sorts of Championships. —K.B. Cayman Islands. And while tournaments didn't even exist. But today, more than 100 of the winter pond hockey gatherings in Western Canada jamborees are staged across Canada and the are generally smaller in scope than their northern U.S., offering days of outdoor eastern brethren, Alberta's 2011 Pond thrills in divisions for both men and women. Hockey Championships attempted to set a Some are massive affairs, with the equivalent world record for the largest outdoor hockey 32 W E S T W O R L D p30-35_Hockey.indd 32 >> game, carving out a huge rink on frozen Lac Cardinal where more than 100 skaters played simultaneously with 25 pucks. The Guinness Book of World Records effort drew more than 3,000 spectators, was held in minus-30-degree temperatures and required the clearing of 80 hectares of snow off the equivalent of nine hockey rinks combined. Many have tried to explain Canada's fascination with hockey. Writer Stephen Leacock, for one, believed that the sport symbolizes the Canadian experience in the New World. "In a land so inescapably and inhospitably cold, hockey is the chance of life, and an affirmation that despite the deathly chill of winter, we are alive." It's an observation that rings true for anyone whose hockey baptism took place outdoors. Certainly one of my most enduring childhood memories is the sight of my father outside my bedroom window in midwinter, garden hose in hand. His shoulders are hunched as he stamps his feet, his nose as red as a thermometer bulb. Ignoring the cold, he patiently sprays jets of water, transforming our backyard lawn into the frozen oasis where my brother and I learned to skate and play hockey. WINTER 2011 10/25/11 11:59:58 AM

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