Village Squire, 1977-01, Page 31SPORTS
Now that we've got the expensive things,
how about the cheap ones?
BY KEITH ROULSTON
There's a nice new shiny arena just
about ready to open in our town. It's a
source of community pride, a rdal dandy.
It has the usual ice surface and a large
public meeting hall %nd oodles of space for
dressingrooms and snackbars and for
parents to stand in the warmth and watch
the kids play in the cold. It cost upwards of
a half -million dollars.
It's beaufiful to be sure and a real
addition to the community but I have to
shake my head a little when I look at it and
look at the total bill and remember. I guess
Imust be getting old, when I start talking
like that.
I remember the hours we used to spend
on the old pond on our farm, the whole
neighbourhood clan of youngsters. On
good days when we could get out of chores,
we'd start in the early morning and go all
day, with breaks only to thaw frozen
fingers or toes, to get some food or to
keep our dogs from fighting. We were
disorganized. We were learning bad
hockey habits. We made our own rules and
broke them as we chose. But man did we
have fun.
The thing I remember most now was that
it was such cheap fun. We had a hockey
stick and our skates and maybe the odd
piece of equipment that we'd been given
for' Christmas, but for the most part, we
have very little invested except our time
and our limitless imagination.
As time went by, of course, the pond just
wasn't good enough. Our pride told us that
we were beyond that "kid's stuff' and that
the only place that was good enough for us
now was the big indoor rink in town. That
was where the glory was. That was where
the hockey heroes played, men (they were
really only boys but they seemed like men
to adoring youngsters) who were surely
nearly just as good as Jean Beliveau and
Rocket Richard because who could be
better than these magnificent players (that
was the day before television in every
home showed just how good the really good
were) .
Even the indoor rinks were relatively
simple things in those days. In most
smaller towns it was just a steel cover over
an ice_ surface with a tew rooms for
changing and a snack bar. There was no
fancy community hall, not even an artificial
ice plant.
Of course by the time we were 16 nearly
all the old gang from the pond weren't
even playing hockey anymore. The big
rink in town was just for the elete of
hockey.
The same of course is true for the big
new arenas although there does seem to be
some attempt being made to keep older
players in the game nowadays. But still,
the number of people using an arena in a
year is a minority of the population of any
given community. Even such events as
public skating are almost completely the
reilm of the younger set. Yet we spend so
much money on it.
Likewise the "in" thing for communities
of any size to have these days is a
swimming pool. Once again the expense is
immense and the use minimal. The
swimming pool is even more extravagant
than the arena in many ways because the
swimming pool, if it is outdoors, can only
be used about two months of the year, the
operating cost is high because of the need
for constant supervision for safety's sake,
and the clientelle is even more restricted to
youngsters.
Yet despite the cost most communities
have at least one and probably both of the
facilities mentioned. A lot, though, don't
have things like tennis courts, outdoor
basketball courts, open-air skating rinks or
horseshoe pits. All the latter are relatively
inexpensive.
In recreation and sport, as in just about
any other aspect of North American life, we
seem to feel that if it isn't expensive, it
isn't any good. We have all the big costly
frills, but none of the simple, cheap ones.
We have all the sports and activities that
require supervision, but none that allow
kids, or adults for that matter to play at
their own pace in their own way without
doing damage to anyone else.
In winter, I'd particularly like to see us
get together in our communities and build
outdoor rinks for pleasure skating. I
haven't skated for years, I must admit, and
gave up_ skating back in high schook
because it seemed to be kid's stuff. I
rediscoved the joys of the sport however in
college when we used to go down to the big
outdoor rink at Toronto's city hall and skate
for hours, even in the coldest of days. An
outdoor rink, with the sun shining down by
day or the stars out by night is a far more
pleasurable place to skate than an arena.
I'd be willing to bet that if some community
organizations took the time to build an
outdoor rink a lot more adults would be
digging out the blades from the upstairs.
closet then. That would truly be recreation,
and inexpensive too.
It would be a return to the past, the years
nearly a century ago when the local ice rink
was a major center of socializing in the
winter, not just for the hockey crowd or the
curling crowd or the figure skating children
and mothers as today, but for the whole
community. Somehow I think we could
learn from the people of those days.
S a n d
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Wish to extend the
Season's Greetings
Seaforth, Ont.
527-1420
•
May your New Year be
14, rich in all the good things ...
Hearty health, Meaningful work
• Warm friendships, and a •
Happy Home!
�• Peace to You and Yours!
„Y.
Village Squire/January 1977 21