The Worst Thing about Sharing the Ice

“Sir, can I get you to slow down?” If poetry, as Samuel Coleridge once wrote, is the best words in the best order, then as far as I’m concerned, this combination of words is anything but poetic, the worst grouping of words in the English language. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes they’re spoken to me during open skate after someone complains to the monitor about how fast I’m going.

After Thanksgiving, the closer we get to Christmas and the colder and snowier it is outside, the larger the number of people who decide to come to the rink for some seasonal fun. I have to make it a point to get on the ice right away during the winter months. People typically don’t arrive early, so for the first few minutes of the session, I can get in some laps, forward and backward, and some circles, forward and backward, before it gets too congested to stride and work up a sweat. But as people trickle onto the ice and space disappears, the trouble is that I don’t always gauge soon enough when it’s time to slow down. It might take a close call to get me to realize how crowded it has become.

Even when I’ve backed off, though, another problem is that parents who don’t skate well or who don’t skate at all have no idea that I’m the safest one on the ice. All they see is my speed and have no idea that I’m under control. They don’t know that I’m going no faster than will allow me to stop or turn to avoid a kid who falls or veers my way. They don’t get that I’m paying attention to everything that’s going on and that I know how to stay out of trouble. They don’t understand that it’s safer for me to go faster than slower, because a little bit of speed allows me to react more quickly than an inexperienced skater can make mistakes, keeping us both safe. They don’t realize that their kids are the dangerous ones, not me.

It’s hard not to take it personally, as an insult to my judgment and abilities and willingness to get along, when the monitor asks me to slow down. I feel awkward and stupid as I skate afterward, self-consciously wondering if I’m going slow enough. I begin to stew, trying to figure out who complained. Then I feel like an idiot for reacting this way. It takes the fun out of it for me.

It’s not as if there are other times to skate. My hockey team doesn’t hold practices, and I can’t buy private ice time. If I’m going to skate, it has to be during the open session, like everyone else. Even when it’s crowded, though, it’s better than not skating at all. I suppose I could go to drop-in hockey during the busy season. But you can’t really work on specific skating skills during the game. And you’re stuck with puck hogs and guys who take five-minute shifts and jerks who act like drop-in is the NHL. No one wants to organize by positions or in lines, so confusion reigns when people lose track and no one knows where they’re supposed to be playing. I suppose I might get a better workout than at open skate and maybe even fit in some drills if people leave before the session’s over. I suppose I could look at it as a chance to work on my hockey skills. Still, I hate to lose the edge on my conditioning, an edge you can’t get by playing the game.

At open skate, the thing that’s hard for me to remember is that despite the fact I’m skating within my limits, inexperienced skaters get thrown off when they look up and suddenly, from their perspective, I’m coming right at them or I’m speeding past. They sometimes stiffen and lose their balance and fall. No matter how much room there is between us when I skate by, the perception tends to be that I almost hit them. The worst thing about sharing the ice isn’t people who get in my way so much as admitting that sometimes I’m the one who’s ruining the fun for others.