I'm not certain what the world record is for the most outdoor hockey rinks, but Quebec City has 127 of them. Within a 20 minute walk from my house there are three. I divide them into the very busy rink, the not-so busy rink, and the skate-with-the-sweetheart-or-the-family rink.
Tuesdays, we head to the busy rink where "Les Vieux" divide themselves into two groups. Darks versus Whites.
As Tuesday night is my Toronto Maple Leafs vintage Bill Barilko sweater night, I'm with the Darks, where my job is to play defense, dish off the puck to the more energetic guys, and maybe, just maybe, embark on one or two rushes.
Rushes that may or may not become end-to-end jobs. That, and of course, have myself some fun.
So tonight we started throwing the puck around in our usual lazy manner, as guys came on to the ice, one by one, or two at a time, and eventually a game started. A game just like any another game.
That is, until a coach bus parked itself on D'Auteuil Street, 50 feet or so from the rink.
As the door opened, a ruckus could be heard. The type of ruckus that any of us who has ever been anywhere near a hockey rink has heard many times.
They piled out of the bus, half-running, half-stumbling, and headed towards us. Or more accurately, headed towards the ice. "Hey, hey, guys. Wait up, wait up!", a parent or coach yelled from the back.
The first thing I noticed was their equipment. Everything matched. The gloves, the pants, the helmets. All new and all top of the line.
I couldn't help but think back and my own faraway years as a young minor hockey player, and think that we would have been quite impressed to see an opposing team so nattily attired.
Our team, had the old early 1970's Vancouver Canucks hockey stick and rink logo, and certainly had no names on the back. They were passed down from year to year, and you were fortunate if the socks actually matched the sweater.
As I was the player who is the most comfortable with English, and the player whose style is well adapted to chatting while skating, the man who appeared to be in charge of this group asked me, "Is it okay if the boys go out on the ice? They've never skated outdoors before.".
"Sure, we'll divide the rink up. You guys take half, we'll take half." As our numbers were lower on this evening due to the fact that it's Valentine's Day and some guys have their priorities wrong, there would be room for everyone, we all agreed.
Enough room, until we realized that there was not one, but in fact, two teams, presumably here to take part in the 53rd annual Quebec City Pee-Wee Tournament, hockey's equivalent to the Little League World Series of baseball.
As sharp looking as the first group of kids looked in their coordinated outfit, the second group was a more ragtag looking bunch. In fact they didn't have full hockey gear. Just skates, gloves and helmets. Except their goalies, who were in full gear, complete with yellow sweaters which had clearly seen better days.
In the space of about 15 minutes, we went from being 10 older guys shinnying our way through a nice winter evening, to a mishmash of "Les Vieux", a couple of Pee-Wee teams, and about a dozen adults armed with cameras, scrambling to get snapshots of their offspring taking their first strides on natural ice.
The chaotic scene was too much for a few of our group, who simply chose to leave the ice to the oncoming mob. A couple of us older guys remained, throwing the puck around while looking on as the kids soaked in the experience of skating outdoors under the lights, in a remarkably beautiful setting, just steps away from where, unbeknownst to them, 100 years earlier a group of Quebec City boys, who called themselves the Bulldogs, a team led by hockey legend Joe Malone, won the first of its two Stanley Cups.
I learned that the first of the two teams, the one with the matching uniforms, was from the U.S. and they figured that it would be good to take the boys out on natural ice while they were in town, and they invited a team from the Ukraine to join them in the experience. "Even if they both played yesterday, they still have lots of energy left over", said one of the coaches.
"Why don't you guys take the whole rink and have the kids play a game?'', I asked.
"Only our kids have full gear, plus the kids are not all at the same level", answered the coach.
"Just throw the sticks in the middle, and split them up. I think the people would like to see that.", I said pointing to the 20 to 30 passersby who had stopped to watch the two Pee-Wee teams buzzing around the outdoor rink, laughing, talking, and having the time of their lives.
Within two minutes I found myself standing over a pile of sticks.
One fancy stick thrown to the left, one fancy stick thrown to the right. One not-so fancy stick thrown to the left, one not-so fancy stick thrown to the right. "All right boys, whichever side your stick is on, that's your team", yelled out the coach.
For the next 20 minutes or so, two Pee-Wee teams from two totally different cultures skated, passed, stickhandled and shot the puck all over the ice.
As I skated off the ice, my unofficial refereeing duties fulfilled, one of the horse carriage drivers who had walked over to watch the action said to me in French, "Ça c'est la meilleure game de hockey que j'ai vu depuis longtemps''. (That's the best hockey game I've seen in a long time.)
Hard not to agree with him.
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