"The hardest part about skating is the ice."
~Stephen Wright
"My dad became a soap opera actor, and I was an extra in a skating rink scene on the soap.
I didn't audition. It was nepotism all the way."
~Jennifer Aniston
"What was really funny is that as I got older,
all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend
because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating."
~Scott Hamilton
One of my early ideas when I created my Updated Bucket List for YEAR 77 was to repeat some of the activities I had enjoyed in the past but hadn't done for a long time. Ice skating is one of those activities. During my Year 77 I wanted to do this activity at Merlin Olsen Park in Logan (Central Park when I was a youngster) since that is where I learned to skate and did most of my skating as a kid. But they haven't been freezing the pond very often in recent years, and the Eccles Ice Center, which was constructed in connection with the 2002 Winter Olympics, is in Logan so I decided to go there. I selected Sunday January 28th to do this activity since I was already in Utah for the annual Park City Ski Trip.
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The entire Covert and Sorenson families went to the Ice Center with me. We were all good skaters. As I went on the ice in my red leather figure skates, I felt very flexible and stable - just like when I skated back in the 1950s. I circled the rink slowly at first, then picked up speed, never feeling unsteady. I decided to do a few jumps. First I did a quadruple Lutz jump. Then a quad-flip followed by a triple-toe. Felt good! Then I did a triple axel, triple toe and into a triple toe loop, finishing with a Salchow jump. Everything felt great!!
Then I decided we should do some pairs skating. The first photo below is Lesly and I, the next photo is Amy and I, and the third photo is Judy and I. We look like professionals!
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------- OH !! ------ DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT ALL THE ABOVE WAS A DREAM?
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Now reality. -- I talked Judy & Randy and their family, and Dee H, and a bunch of the Covert family members into joining me at the Eccles Ice Center. It's an impressive facility, with time allocated for skating lessons, hockey games, and open skating. The stadium seating inside will accommodate sizeable crowds when they are hosting hockey games. Photos below show the skating facility and an interesting Olympic Impressions Pavilion next to the Center.
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We went to the Ice Center Sunday afternoon, rented skates (those who were willing to test their skill level), and went on the ice. I had wanted to rent red leather skates (see related comments in A Little History of my Ice Skating below), but the best I could do was red and black skates as shown below.
Below are those that came to the Ice Center. The first photo on the left is me and the Covert family. From the left after me is Lesly (born July 7th by the way), Cole, Michael, Gina, Barbara, and Quent. The second photo is me with the Sorenson family and Dee. From the left is Candice, daughter Aria, Judy (Hadfield), Randy, me, Dee, Lance, and son Max.
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In the photo below I'm with Cole, who rode "shotgun" for me; i.e. he skated near me in case I fell he would rescue me.
We skated for a little over an hour and I think everyone had a really fun time. I'm glad I scheduled this "activity from the past" and happy so many joined me in the endeavor. A fun afternoon!
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In the coming March of my Year 77 I am planning to play a set of tennis with Al, which is a Repeat of a Lost Activity. I thought while I had some free time in Logan I would get in a little tennis practice.
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A little History of My Ice Skating: I grew up in Northern Utah where we normally had big winters - particularly during the late '40s and early '50s when I was a young kid. There were a lot of kids around my age in my neighborhood and in the winter, since they didn't plow the streets often and never used cinders or salt, we could ice skate on the street that ran through the neighborhood. Also, our neighbor, Clarence Reading, would flood his back yard and make a pretty nice skating pond.
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However, the most important skating area was Central Park (Merlin Olsen Park today) about six city blocks east of my house. There were many times that I was at the Park skating every afternoon into the evening. There were also many times that I would walk home at night crying because my feet were so cold. But I always went back for more! The photo below was taken on the day we skated at the Eccles Ice Center - you might not be able to tell from the photo, but there is no ice.
An interesting part of my skating history is that I had red figure skates. My mother gave them to me for Christmas one year and I was initially embarrassed to wear them. Although there were many different colored skates, all the boys had black skates, either black figure skates or black hockey skates. However, I was actually a pretty good skater, so I didn't take much kidding about the color of my skates.
As an aside, I thought for the first 70 years of my life that I was the only kid in Logan that had red ice skates. At my 70th birthday, Mike N sent me a letter and I'll print a quote from his letter:
"When I was in the 6th grade, my father gave me a pair of red leather ice skates for xmas. It was tough enough being small for my age, let alone small and wearing red skates. On one of my early skating trips to Central Park I spotted this kid skating, wearing (much to my great joy) a pair of red leather skates. The great part was he was an excellent skater."
So even though I should have known differently, for all those years I thought I was the only kid in Logan that had red skates and I always wondered why my mom bought them for me - I still do (they must have been on sale). Just for fun I went looking for images of colored ice skates on the internet. Below are the ones I found.
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A Little History of Eccles Ice Center: The George S. Eccles Ice Center opened in January 2002, and is Cache Valley’s only year-round ice arena. This is a world-class facility, built and operated with generous charitable support. The Ice Center was built in conjunction with the 2002 Winter Olympics that were held in Utah and has been a great place for local residents (and visitors) to have access to a rink. This type of facility can be a boon for a local community to develop talent and provide recreational opportunities. The legacy of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games continues to live on at the Eccles Ice Center.