Winter’s Friday nights were also a hoot at Wedgewood’s outdoor rink. For Friday night was the time to show off one’s skills and daring in front of the girls. The girls from both of our schools, Protestant or Catholic, it didn’t matter for this was also a nun free zone. It was also an unwritten rule that Friday nights were off limits to hockey of any sort. Just skating in pairs, arm in arm, holding hands with the girls, chatting some useless banter and stammering, nervously, to get the words out in some nonsensical bit of juvenile conversation and vocal drivel that would only seem important or relevant to a twelve year or fourteen year old, while moving to the music provided. It was all too innocent and pleasant.
Everyone had their favourite partners. Partners, as in many, for we were shy enough to move on when the conversation became uncomfortably sparse. For every goodbye there was a new hello and on and on it went this way for a few hours every Friday night in the dark and cold winter months. And, if we were really lucky and had the requisite athletic and organizational skills, a game of “Snap the Whip” would arise. This was like a giant conga line on skates. The lead skater would grab the next skater by the arm with his or her right hand. The second skater would do the same to the third, the third to the fourth and so on and on so it went until such a long sinewy line of skaters would form sliding like a snake along and to the whim of the lead few skaters: hooting and hollering, crying out with laughter and shrieking with delight. The idea was to gather enough speed and momentum while holding on to one another such that the last few skaters on the line would be snapped like a whip, usually on a sharp turn, and off they’d go, launched into space and darkness. Their dark human forms silhouetted against the backdrop of the dull, ghostlike and unworldly aura of the winter’s night and set adrift in the cold night’s air. Into the snow bank they would fly and the line would suddenly dissolve amidst the laughter and the giggles of boys and girls, not to form again but on the unrehearsed whim and unorganized thought of one of the young skaters. It was truly amazing how suddenly that line would form without any hesitation at all for we all knew exactly what was required…and we did it over and over again without a prompt or a prop or an adult in sight. Those were magical evenings. They were hugely popular, especially for us lads and gals who were nearing the transitional phase of hormonal development and immaturity…