I guess I've been spoiled by intramural games at college and beer league hockey in various arenas over the last 4 decades, because these photos brought back long forgotten memories of being subject to the whims of outdoor temperatures, and biting wind chills. I only remember two occasions from my Feller days when I skated on artificial ice. The first time was a game against St. John's High on the municipal rink that had a sheet of ice covered by a roof but otherwise was exposed to the elements. The ice was kept frozen during mild spells using a small compressor and refrigeration unit as a booster, so technically this counts. We were a ragtag bunch with a wide range of skills (me being at the lower end of the spectrum), but we held our own until Kenny Phelan, our best player, took a puck in the face that split his upper lip and he had to be taken to the ER to have the two flaps of his lip stitched together. Ah, the glorious days before helmets and face masks - we were crazy. The other time we played in artificial ice, we got our butts handed to us 16 - 1 or 2? by the CMR JV team in their campus arena (they eased off in the second and third periods).
As I write this, I realize that in all the text on all the Feller web sites, I've seen very little, if any, commentary on CMR which is surprising since it was a first-rate college virtually right next door. It's also surprising that we didn't visit more often, given its proximity and our cadet-induced devotion to things military. Perhaps it was a Navy vs. Army thing. As far as I know, no Feller student from my generation went there. Well, given Feller's academic standards perhaps that part's not so surprising. I guess that now it's not a four year school anymore but serves to provide a bridge year that prepares Quebec's Grade 11 graduates for their first year at RMC in Kingston.
I had much more experience with the RMC campus since as an underage, undergraduate I became friendly with several cadets in the tap rooms of downtown Kingston and visited them occasionally. One also had to skirt or traverse the RMC campus on Point Frederick, to get to what the guides called "Old" Fort Henry. As I wrote this I suddenly wondered about New Fort Henry. Presumably there was one, but where was it, anyway? Googling produced the information that Old Fort Henry was built in 1812 to protect the shipyards on Point Frederick from attacks by the pesky Americans. "New" Fort Henry was built on the same spot in 1843. Very little of the original "old" fort remains. So, if I understand the history, what the guides and literature referred to as "Old Fort Henry" on tours I took in the 1960's, was in reality New Fort Henry! I sense a scandal here! Does the government know about this? If so, when did they find out and why are they covering it up? Perhaps there's a sleuth among us who will be provoked by this egregious state of affairs and carry out a thorough investigation of this outrageous misrepresentation. Well, perhaps not...
After college, I also made an effort to visit the 3rd of Canada's military colleges, Royal Roads , which I think is now also defunct, at least as a military college. It was still operating the summer I hitchhiked from Kingston to Vancouver Island, in search of something, or other... I guess myself, or perhaps a new self. But as Jackson Browne says, no matter how far you run, you can never get away from you, so I was only partly successful. The marvelous campus of Royal Roads just at the edge of Victoria, was among the many things I saw and the many great (and a few scary) people I met on this particular rite of passage. Perhaps I'll do a travelogue on it when the Feller well runs dry. How I got to here from the starting point of outdoor rinks is rather perplexing, isn't it? Sometimes you just start writing and who knows what's going to come out next... On to the pictures!
| This is the back door on the boy's side of Massey Hall. I guess I could have put it in the page on buildings, but it was the exit we all used to get to the rink, so I put it here. I don't know why this picture is even in Doug's collection, or why it was included with the photos he sent to me. Perhaps it was his favourite door, behind which he stole his first kiss, Another mystery to solve? |
| The skaters are too far away for me
to identify anyone, but the view of the shack-like, multi-car garage in
the background reminds me of some things.
Several of the teachers had a slot in it and it was the site of the grand car-tipping incident. For me, the most notable incident involving this structure had nothing to do with Mr. Cram's car but took place over several weeks a few years later behind the garage building. One Spring a young male teacher rebuilt an antique car with the help of some of my classmates, notably Gord Cameron, who was heavily into go-karts as I recall. When the car was in running order, which I believe was soon after graduation, this guy left Feller and drove the car home. Co-incidentally, the license plates on Howard Rose's car mysteriously disappeared. Despite what we say about our teachers, they were clever enough to realize that the disappearance of the plates coincided with the departure of the old jalopy. Thus, the police, no fools in their own right, quickly found the old jalopy sitting in the driveway of his parent's house with the "borrowed" plates still attached. I don't know what happened to the chap from a legal standpoint, but needless to say he didn't return the following September. Presumably he hadn't intended to anyway. The shadow of the photographer seen here and in several other shots looks particularly yeti-like. A reminder to me of how low in the sky the sun is in the northern latitudes. Looking at the rest of the picture I was reminded that when we talked about the "boards" surrounding our rink, we really meant it. I think that these ones were hand made, on site by my dad and some others during the summer one year. The snow banks in this picture and those that follow are rather impressive. Often, the snow was removed by hand. At one point my dad bought this large, red, very noisy, heavy duty snowblower, but I remember it as being rather temperamental. I vaguely remember one occasion when there had been a huge snowfall the day before the annual rite of creating the rink had been scheduled. Following a summer's inactivity, the snowblower was particularly cranky and they couldn't get it started, so a crowd of us cleaned about 3 feet of snow off what was to be the rink by hand, and then flooded the semi-flat surface using warm water (legend had it that warm water would freeze faster). Everything that I learned in subsequent physics classes suggests that this myth was as incorrect, as most others. Surely warm water would freeze more slowly, which is likely what you would want because then the water would spread more evenly and you would get a smoother surface. Anyway, we were up until about 3 AM laying down a base, letting that freeze, painting lines, then flooding it again a couple of times because we were desperate to get the rink ready for the hockey game that had been scheduled for the next afternoon. Where's the Zamboni when you need it? Well, in this case, I guess not invented yet would be the answer to that rhetorical question. |
| Brian Babb informs me that it is he and
Patsy Lynn in this shot. I guess he recognized the clothes or
specifically remembered the occasion. In either case, I imagine this brought
back memories.
The snow banks are particularly impressive in this shot. In recent years my back occasionally goes out on me; is there any connection? |
Lawrence Lambert and someone in some strange ritual.
| Those instamatics (or was this the
era of Brownies?) didn't have a very fast shutter speed, did they?
Either that, or the person in the foreground missed their calling as an
Olympic speed skater. I don't remember the ice surface as being of remarkably good quality, but
in this picture it looks more like hard snow than ice. And what's with the hand holding?
This was clearly pre-John Gilmour, who I believe banned this practice.
Yet another reason my classmates and I had issues with him.
Apart from the evocative view of the water tower, this picture stirred long-lost remembrances of the flimsy string of dim and rather widely spaced lights. I remember helping to string them just before, and sometimes after, the first real snowfall so that we could have night hockey practices and games and co-ed Saturday night skates. As I mentioned above, I was, by a wide margin, not the best hockey player around, but I loved the game. I didn't play much in games until my senior year when they needed extra bodies, but one night I got talked in to playing goalie for a team practice. I donned the really old set of pads, and the ancient blocker and catching glove that usually gathered dust in the equipment room off the gym. I had no mask, no hockey pants and no chest protector (I used a couple of layers of magazines inside a wind breaker). In retrospect, I can't believe I did that, I was lucky I wasn't maimed. I certainly wasn't very good, but every hockey player abhors the lameness of scrimmaging with only one goaltender, so I was offered much encouragement. I discovered that the feeble, widely spaced lights, none of which were actually over the net, made it difficult to keep track of the puck which often came speeding unexpectedly out of the gloom. My most memorable save was a wicked blast by Karl Jorgensen. I was standing there with my glove up trying to follow the play when all of a sudden the puck rocketed directly into the pocket of my catch glove. My teammates all congratulated me as if I'd made a save on a penalty shot in the waning seconds of the game that would clinch the Stanley Cup. Karl shook his head and skated away muttering that I was lucky and hadn't even seen the shot. After all these years, I can admit that he was right. I was more surprised than anybody when the puck hit my glove. |
