Outside Hockey

I've missed a lot of my hockey games with the Renegades recently, due to being out at Nordegg.  They put in new boards, lights and a heated change shack out at the rink in Nordegg last year.  I wanted to go and play over the Christmas break, particularly for the New Years Eve game.  But it was just too cold and everything was shut down.  I found out that they have adult drop in hockey at the rink every Wednesday and Saturday night at 7:00.  So I headed down there on Saturday the 15th.  A first there were just a couple of other skaters there, and we hung around shooting pucks for a half hour or so.  But later five young people from Frontier Lodge showed up.  So, although we didn't have any goalies, we had enough players to play 3-on-3 for a while.  We ended up playing for almost two hours straight.

It was a beautiful night... starting out at about -2 at 6:45 when I arrived.  By the end of the evening it had only dropped down to -5.  There was a full moon, and no wind, so it was a great night for a skate.  When you are moving around that much, its almost too warm

I wear shin pads and hockey pants when I play pick up hockey because my old knees and hips don't take well to crashing to the ice.  I didn't fall down once during the game, even though the outside ice was a lot more uneven than the arena ice I'm used to.  After the game I took my gear off and then promptly wiped out on the ice in the parking lot as I was walking to my truck.  Bruised my knee and cut my ankle on the ice... go figure....

But I really enjoyed the exercise and look forward to getting back out there again a few times before winter is over....

The Renegades have a league game on Sunday morning.  With the truck issues I have experienced, and the resulting delay in my return to the city, I will not make it to this game.  But the outside skate was a nice substitute.