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by Max Finkelstein I was only 15 years old when I took my first trip to Canada. I went with my mother to visit relatives who lived in Ottawa. As a young boy growing up in Edinburgh, Scotland, a trip to Canada in winter was a dream. My heroes were professional hockey players. I dreamed about going to a hockey game. And we did fulfil many of these dreams. We saw the Senators beat the Montreal Canadians....we skated on the Rideau Canal in the shadow of the Parliament Buildings. We went toboganning at the Experimental Farm....but what I remember most from this trip, the experience that is indelibly etched into my childhood, is playing shinny hockey on the frozen Ottawa River. Not far from my home in Scotland is the gravesite of Alexander Mackenzie. I knew he had explored Canada, but playing shinny on the river where he and many other explorers and fur traders and missionaries paddled -some in search of wealth, some seeking lost souls, and others, like Mackenzie, seeking adventure and knowledge. I remember looking up the frozen expanse of that river, staring into the distance where it disappears around a bend, and it called to me, as it has called to all who have passed this way. And as the sun went down, and the lights of the city appeared, the river became a pathway of darkness, where no lights disturbed the blackness of night, still calling to those who are drawn to go past where the roads and sidewalks end. But most of all, I remember playing shinny hockey on the river, with relatives and friends and a three-legged dog. This is hockey as I had dreamed it would be – on a frozen river, the temperature – 25, the sun shining and my skin pinched by the cold wind. The game was also distinct. The three-legged dog, Mica, was the star player. Two teams played against each other, and everyone tried to keep the puck away from Mica. When Mica got the puck, as he inevitably did, someone would call “Dog Ball!”. Everyone would stop skating, and a new puck would be put into play. We never did figure out who won, but it was probably Mica. That was years ago. Today, I often look out of my bedroom window, staring at the rooflines of Edinburgh, at the leaden skies and the water drops wiggling down the window, and I think back to that cold, sunny day on the frozen Ottawa River, and the cry of “Dog ball!” And I know I will return to the river. |