Saturday, January 10, 2009

A Saturday Skate

The gang on ice

After a couple of indoor soccer games this morning we decided to wrap up the day with a skate. A stretch of the Rideau Canal is open for skating but it seemed a little far given that we only had a couple more hours of daylight. So it was off to the old Nepean City Hall outdoor rink for a few laps.

Round and round we skated. Luckily it was getting close to supper so the crowds were down to just a few stragglers. Most people joining us seemed a little shaky on the blades but there was one man out there that seemed to think he was Kurt Browning on hockey skates.

Skating

Over all my years of skating on outdoor rinks I noticed that people tend to skate in a counter clockwise direction. What's up with that? At least on the canal it's straight there and back and on the indoor hockey rinks they actually have a guy blow a whistle every once in a while to change direction. But whenever I find myself on an outdoor rink it's counter clockwise. It's reached the point where I'm now convinced that I've become noticeably less comfortable skating clockwise. Next time I'm out I'm going to have to go against the flow of skater traffic in order to balance it out.

Mitten magic show
Check out Emma's new method of getting her mitts on under her coat sleeves.

Click here for a list of all the outdoor rinks and puddles and click here for a list of public arena skate times.

2 comments:

Michael said...

How come you don't have a Moe hockey helmet?

Mark said...

Right-handed people can cross their right foot over their left more easily than the other way so it is natural for it to start out this way. This is then reinforced by decades of skating in a counter clockwise direction.