Get Off My Ice!

My friend Headscarf Skater jokes in our training time that I need to have this slogan emblazoned on my skating top.

 

Along with a big hockey skate behind a red cross.

 

Where I train (with my coach), we have a private rink that our club use. The only people you need to look out for are higher level skaters speeding across your path on their way to a double lutz. It’s a bit like permanent patch ice, I guess, but in general there are 2-3 group lessons as well as our private 2-person lesson going on at one time. The coaches mark lines in the ice so that we have a vague patch to use and can attempt to prevent collisions.  

Out of lessons, however, it’s a different matter. We don’t have patch/freestyle ice times. Our nearest ice rink has public skating, 10am-midnight weekdays, 10am-5.45am weekends (so you can’t even use 6am ice, because the rink has just closed). This means putting up with those I unfairly call the Plebs (i.e. the general public/people in rental or paper skates/beginners –yes I know we were all there once) AS WELL AS private lessons, child prodigies speeding around doing double-doubles (this is Russia after all), dance pairs meandering around at their own will, the occasional pro- or up-and-coming-figure skater and, of course, Those-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. I am incredibly irritable when on practice ice with these people and easily distracted if they don’t give me some space (I give them theirs, fair’s fair). 

So I have decided to get this off my chest - not in the usual way (by scowling forcefully at anyone wearing hockey skates within a five-mile radius) - but by writing a letter to the imaginary personification of my least favourite type of non-figure-skater: Those-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. I’ll call him: the Hockey Goon.  

Dear Hockey Goon, 

I don’t mean to be a Snotty Figure Skater. I don’t want to give us a bad name, it’s not fair on other, more rational skaters. I’m honestly not happy about having a sore forehead at night from concentrating very hard on wishing that you’ll fall in the deep mine you’ve just gouged out of the ice, but maybe you could help me control this by learning some courtesy. 

Perhaps you could start by apologising to that small child who just bounced off the ice when you flew into them. Maybe you could even prevent that from happening next time by looking behind you when you’re charging around backwards. Perchance you could hold off on ruining our just-resurfaced rink for maybe an hour, so I can practise my spins? In a corner. Out of your way. 

Is it also inconceivable that you might give me some space when I’m jumping? Surely it’s not asking a lot. I just feel uncomfortable about taking my life into my own hands whenever I pull up into a combination and come face-to-face with Bulky the Caveman, looming into view attempting to sabotage my Salchow. Is it such a huge request that you do not give lessons to your tiny minions using up half the rink in a crowded public session? I have little space as it is. Are you specifically training them to attempt to hockey-slide into my forward camel? Because it’s not me who will come out the worse off – it’s the child with the toe pick embedded in its neck. Perhaps you could also a) not tear up the ice with your infuriatingly blunt, scratchy blades making me fall off my edges and b) not practice your stops by moving side to side, scratching up about 6 inches of ice into two piles and creating a death trap for all who skate there after you. 

If you promise to make more of an effort re: the above, I will promise to stop a)declaring loudly about how ugly your form of “skating” is, and, indeed, putting inverted commas around the word “skating” in a hockey context; b) aiming for your face with my free leg when I enter a camel for the gazillionth time because I could swear you are charging around the rink to interrupt every single entry; c) muttering about where I would put your stick if said stick was actually in your hands as opposed to you miming holding aforementioned stick in an annoying way; d) not accepting with amicability that if you choose to tie your skates that loosely it is not my problem (and I will not laugh) if you break your ankle; and d) wearing an expression that looks like I’m standing in the middle of the sewage system whenever you or one of your fellow goons is on my, sorry our, ice. 

If we can come to this agreement, I’m pretty sure the calmer, happier ice will benefit the rest of the rink as well.  

Yours, 

IN2L2S

If I ever do give this to a Hockey Goon, rest assured it will be ignored. Just like the rink rules.