Sunday afternoon is hockey time at Deneki Lakes.  Nowadays, the luxuriously long daylight of post-spring equinox allows the games to begin more leisurely at 2 pm and continue as long as lungs and muscles will hold out.  In the depth of mid-winter, we start promptly at noon, the sun barely crests over the mountains at 1 pm only to set 45 minutes later, and we’re wrapping it up as dusk sets in at 3 pm, or sooner because the temperature is dropping.  These pond hockey games are not everyone’s idea of fun, but for those who turn out, it’s often the highlight of their week.

Depending on the temperature and snow conditions for our alternate form of preferred winter exercise, x-c skiing, the turn out makes these pick-up pond hockey games brutal and fun or just fun.  It’s either a lung-aching 3 on 3 or a leisurely 5 on 5 with a few waiting out their turn on the “benches” (metal folding chairs or rickety wooden saw horses stuck in the snow bank), taking in the views and sipping at their thermos of tea (or adult beverage of choice).  It becomes a gathering place, too, with neighbors stopping by to visit as they cruise past on an afternoon ski, skijor, or bike ride on the winter trails.  Sometimes Martha T. and the kids even make hockey-puck brownies to share around at the end of the game.  

This year the rink is in front of Speaks’ cabin, and he and neighbor, Land, are its most devoted caretakers.  When the deep cold sets in, so do massive, ankle-wrenching cracks in the ice.  So on Saturday you’ll often see the two of them on hands and knees towing 5-gallon water jugs with lids cracked just so to allow a steady trickle of water to seal up the small cracks and caulking the big ones with a slurry of slushy snow.   That’s dedication to your sport if I ever saw it.  Since nearly half of the usual hockey players also volunteer on the local fire department, at one point this winter they brought the pumper truck by and flooded the whole rink.  Maybe next winter someone will engineer a makeshift Zamboni.

Pretty soon one of these Sundays will be the last hockey game until October (if we’re lucky) or November.  After a few nights above freezing, the ice gets too soft and slushy.  And once the snow and ice start to go, so do some of our hockey ambitions, frankly.  With the spring thaw, out come the hiking boots, bicycles, canoes, kayaks, and binoculars, as we eagerly await the return of the first ducks on thawing ponds, juncos at our feeders and yellow-rumped warblers in the leafless willows.  Spring and summer are too full to miss hockey too much, but when the pace slows again in late fall, we’ll once again bring our skates to town to be sharpened and decide which new piece of protective hockey gear to invest in this year…I think I’m due for elbow pads.