My Last Night on the Ice

I first slipped on skates at the age of four in the neighbourhood rink down the street from my house. Some would say that I got off to a rocky relationship with my one true love. I quit Learn to Skate at four and a half, complaining about the pointlessness of skating in circles for an hour a week, and wondering why anyone would possibly freeze water and try to stand up on what appeared to be winter boots with knives on the bottom. At the age of six, my uncle came to my house Christmas morning carrying a hockey net and I distinctly remember exclaiming to myself, “Why would Zio get me that? I don’t even like hockey!”

Then one Saturday evening, with no homework and nothing to do before my bedtime, I sat down and watched a Toronto Maple Leafs game with my father, my uncle and my grandfather. Three hours later, I realized I had not moved since the drop of the puck and was amazed that it was possible to do the things on ice that I had just seen these players do. That summer, I stumbled upon my father’s old Easton Wayne Gretzky hockey stick and a beaten up puck in the garage and found myself enthralled with the sound of rubber hitting wood. I would stickhandle alone in my driveway with my mother looking on, unable to lift the puck or even realize that it was left handed when I was a natural righty.

The following October, I was on the ice for my first organized hockey game. After a year of falling constantly and cursing myself for not remaining in that atrocious learn to skate program, I moved to the Downsview Beavers organization and scored my first goal the next season. I immediately fell in love with the rush of a screaming crowd (or just the players’ parents), clapping and yelling in celebration, and discovered my first true passion in life. From then on, hockey became my focus. I practiced alone day and night, in the driveway, in the basement, even in class with an imaginary stick. I grew older, had my first penalty shot (where I hit the post) and accidentally put the puck in my own net (both incidents were a week apart). I scored goals to tie games with time running out, goals in playoff overtime games, and lost countless heartbreakers. As I hit my teenage years, hitting was introduced, and I suddenly grew afraid to play the game I loved. Small and skinny, I was only able to survive through the protection of bigger teammates and the advice of my father, who had missed possibly two games in my entire career. Remaining in the Downsview organization, I chose to head to an all boys catholic school solely for the opportunity to play on their hockey team. After three years of being either too young or too old to play for the age group the school selected to use each season, I made the varsity squad in my senior year. Our home rink was Downsview arena, and it was quite a sight to see the rafters full with screaming students for our afternoon home games, and theme music from Metallica cueing our entrance onto the ice.

By this time, I had turned 17 years old, and my minor hockey days were winding down. After a fantastic final season playing for three teams, spring rolled around and I could see the end. After losing in the championship with all three of my teams, I was invited to a coach’s skate to celebrate a fun season and to take the ice one more time with many who had seen me play since I was a child, along with my two best friends who I had played with for years. The game was to take place, fittingly enough, at Downsview. After two hours of clowning around, trick moves and fake fights, players began to trail off the ice and head home. As I looked for my father in the slowly emptying arena, I realized he must have thought the skate ended an hour later than it did. Finally, I was left with only one other player on the ice, who turned to me and said, “I’m beat man, let’s go home.” I told him that I didn’t really want to take off the skates just yet, and he bid me goodnight and shut the door off the ice.

I stood at centre ice and looked around me. I looked to the stands that had been filled with so many important people in my life through the years. I looked to the roof of the rink, from which had hung several flags during an international tournament that I had played in a few years before, in front of people I had never met and in games where my team came out to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song to represent the nation. I looked to the corners where numerous fights had taken place with the variety of characters that I had shared the ice with. I looked at the net where I had scored one of my first goals ever. Then, I grabbed a puck and came in the same way that I had done as an eight-year old when I scored that goal, and shot it in the exact same spot. I circled again and rushed to the other end, reliving a game tying goal against Norway that had gotten my team to the medal round of that international tournament when I swore I could feel the rink shake. Finally, I came down the left wing on the other side where I had scored the last big goal of my career, a high school playoff goal where I had knocked the goalie’s water bottle off the top of the net with a wrist shot and celebrated by the glass with my fellow students reaching over and slapping my helmet and shoulder pads in celebration. I shot the puck at the exact same spot and smiled to myself, picking up the puck and skating back to center. As I looked up, I noticed my father standing at the exit beside the two benches, watching as he had since I could barely stand on my own two skates. He looked over at me, aware of what the game had meant to the two of us over the decade that I had played.

“It’s time to go son,” he smiled.

“Yeah Dad, I know,” I replied. As I scooped up the puck from my blade to my glove, I took one last look at the building which had left me with so many memories, had defined my childhood.

“I know.”

I skated to the exit door that he had opened for me, and lifted my feet off the ice surface. I walked silently to the dressing room, my father quietly following behind me.