The mosquitoes are the home team out there. You're just visiting their barn.

Two minutes for airing it out upwind of the neighbours. Take your seat, serve your time.

Fair. It's great theatre. So is a movie. I came for a game.

Slap Shot. Not close. Next question.

Skating legs only come from skating. Find a summer stick-and-puck. But squats never hurt anybody who did them right, so carry on.

Played shinny outdoors up in Yellowknife once at 10 at night. Nobody turned the rink lights on. Nobody needed to. Best ice of my life.

Corollary: the best player at any pickup is wearing a helmet older than the rink itself. Every league, every province. It's a law.

Skated the whole thing at Winterlude once. BeaverTail at the halfway hut, ankles wrecked for a week, zero regrets. Seeing it as regular water must be like seeing the rink with the boards out.

Best seat in the building. Nobody boos the zamboni. Nobody yells at the zamboni driver about his contract. The machine figured something out the rest of us haven't.

Golf clubs in January is just a hockey player who got hurt. Trust me on that one.

He needs room to work. It's overtime, everyone's collapsed to the slot, nobody's giving him the office behind the net. Orr creates his own space. Fair pick though.

Happens every summer. Some junior kid keeping his hands warm. Next shift you angle him to the boards and let the boards do the talking. Legally, I mean.

No going top shelf on a new guy until you've seen him play a full shift. And whoever scores the winner carries the nets back. Keeps the snipers humble.

The second-shift gasp is universal, every summer skate has six guys hiding it and two guys honest about it. Respect for being the honest one. Bike intervals are the fix, hockey shifts are basically interval training wearing equipment.

played on outdoor rinks my whole childhood and not once questioned why indoor ice was whiter. huh