Personally, I had an outdoor rink in my parents' home in Campbellton, New Brunswick, as long as I could remember. My dad would start making the ice after the first snowfall (usually at this time of the year) and I have crystal clear memories of my mother handing my dad a pot of boiling water that he would pour over the outside tap, thawing it so we could use the garden hose to have fresh ice.
I pretended to be Montreal Canadiens' great Jean Beliveau when the dozen or so kids would assemble after school and on weekends to play endless hours of shinny hockey. There were about a half-dozen backyard rinks within a 20-minute walk of my "Montreal Forum" and we had our own league, complete with our own version of the Stanley Cup. I remember plowing the snow off a rink that grew out of the frozen waters of Chaleur Bay as a howling east wind made my face feel raw.
But I didn't care and so did none of the other kids. We'd play for hours on end, regardless of the temperature.
Another memory is playing in the famous Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament against a team from Boston. It was snowing so hard that we stopped the game every 10 minutes to shovel the ice surface. We once lost a puck in a snowdrift in the corner, but found it after a frantic search and kept playing.
Here are memories of some people connected to the NHL about playing outdoors:
Markus Naslund, Vancouver Canucks-- "My neighborhood had an outdoor rink. Basically it was so cold they just spread water there and we had a rink. We didn't have any boards. It was natural ice. Sometimes when we practiced, when it reached a certain temperature, we could not practice. When it was minus-25 Celsius, we stopped. But other than that, we practiced. I remember guys crying (because) it was so cold. And when it was snowing pretty heavily, we took turns shoveling the ice. Half the team would shovel and half would practice. That was for the love of the game."
Jim Peplinski, Vice-President, Calgary Flames -- "I can remember losing pucks and that is where I learned to drill holes in them so that in the spring I would know which ones were mine. I lost a lot of pucks. I can remember going home (with cold feet) and putting my feet over the register and it felt good until it really felt bad and then you would cry. And then you learned never to do it again and the next time out you would do it again. I just remember playing outside never thinking of the cold, but knowing it was cold and understanding how cold it was when your feet would have that tingly feeling and then they would be sore and red. But after that they would burn and it would feel nice. It was the best."
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"We had a pond, about 300 feet from my house and you would always hope for that one freeze where there was no snow and you could skate on the whole pond and it was heaven." - Colin Campbell
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NHL Executive Vice-President Colin Campbell -- "We had a pond, about 300 feet from my house and you would always hope for that one freeze where there was no snow and you could skate on the whole pond and it was heaven. You would play all day and it was always the famous last goal wins. It was fun."
Edmonton forward Ryan Smyth -- "I had a couple of buddies who had the full goalie gear so that was a big thing. You had to have a goalie. I remember Christmas with my brothers. At my uncle's place there was an outdoor rink and we'd play for hours."
Hall of Famer Borje Salming -- "I just remember we had to shovel a lot of snow."
Hall of Famer Michael Goulet -- "That is where I learned where to play hockey. We lost a lot of pucks and we had so much fun. I had seven brothers so we had those games every night. It was pleasure just to play hockey for hours and hours."
Detroit General Manager Ken Holland -- "I remember when I was 11 and 12 years old playing on lakes. You would push all the snow away and get the sticks and the pucks. My best friend growing up, his dad was a police officer and his dad used to build a rink in the back yard and we'd play for hours. The puck would go in the snow bank and we'd have to dig it out."
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"In my hometown they did not have covered rinks for the first two or three years of when I played hockey." - Kevin Lowe
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Edmonton General Manger Kevin Lowe -- "In my hometown they did not have covered rinks for the first two or three years of when I played hockey. I remember the sunshine sometimes being so bright that you were squinting. I remember it never being cold. I remember shoveling and I remember putting all the shovels together and the sensation after an early morning ice session after they shoveled the night before. That meant you can play. You would have all your gear on and you'd have to wait for the rink to be shoveled and then you could play."
Vancouver Vice-President Steve Tambellini -- "I remember skating on the Columbia River, taking off from school in the morning and missing the rest of the day so we could go play shinny until it became dark. I also remember playing in Austria when my dad coached there. I grew up learning how to skate and play hockey with a German kid. Grab a lunch and just play, Come home when it was dark."
Columbus forward Geoff Sanderson -- "We didn't have an outdoor rink and we didn't have an indoor rink. We'd play hockey on the streets. The snow would come and it would turn to ice and we'd skate on the asphalt. The people who drove the town trucks didn't put gravel on where we played so we could have ice."
Edmonton goalie Tommy Salo -- "When I was young, we played most of our games outdoors and it was cold. But the next day you would have the sun in your eyes and the day after that it would be snowing. I remember losing a game 1-0 and it was snowing and we lost the puck and couldn't finish the game."
Montreal Canadiens defenceman Craig Rivet -- "With my shot, the pucks kept ending up in the snow banks. I'd look for half an hour, then, say, 'Forget it.' "
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"I played a game on a little outdoor rink a couple of years ago for fun where it was 20 below. I loved it." - Sheldon Souray
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Montreal Canadiens defenceman Sheldon Souray -- "It's the nostalgia of it all, the thought of playing outdoors. It's like having an old car for some guys. The kids today get spoiled with so many indoor rinks and rec centers with four sheets of ice in one complex going up. But some of my best memories are playing on community league rinks, with mitts on under my hockey gloves, scraping the ice every 10 minutes. I played a game on a little outdoor rink a couple of years ago for fun where it was 20 below. I loved it."
Ottawa General Manager John Muckler -- "We had an outdoor rink at my brother's school and he used to take me up there. We lived so close that I was able to walk to the school with my equipment on. My mother would put my skates on me and I'd walk to the rink. I remember going up a hill (to get to the rink) and it was great coming back. It was a lot of fun. We'd play in the dark. I played in Russia in 1964 and we played all our games outdoors. We went into St. Petersburg and played at a soccer stadium that sat 25,000 and it was sold out. It was so cold that when you finished your shift, you would skate from one end of the rink to the other on the sidelines just to keep warm."
-- Philadelphia coach Ken Hitchcock -- "We played outdoors (in Edmonton where he grew up) because this is how you grew up and played the game. They had cement bases and became hockey rinks in the winter. It was a three-line game. There was one line on the ice, one in the (bench), one in the shed. You did your shift on ice, you raced into the shed to warm up, and a lot of times you come out and there was a two-goal swing and you didn't know what was going on. The mothers were the goal judges. They stood on the back of the goal because they were the only honest people in the game. You couldn't trust the dads. They cheated. The mothers stood and called the goals and the dads cleaned the ice. ? You listened to the radio. If it was 10 below, the game was on. Nowadays, if it is 9 below, you don't dare come out of your hotel room. You take cabs everywhere. Back then, you played two hours of hockey in the cold. Boy, was it ever fun."
