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On melting pond Nov. 19, 2006. 07:19 AM LESLIE SCRIVENER The greatest crowd that has gathered on the Grenadier Pond for years thronged on that large stretch of ice last night to enjoy a skate under perhaps the most favourable conditions that have ever been afforded. — The Toronto Star, Jan. 7, 1908 For generations, Torontonians have left their houses on moonlit nights or clear cold days to skate on High Park's Grenadier Pond, RICHARD SANGER FOR THE SUNDAY STAR spurred by the wind and their love of winter. The season is short, Poet Richard Sanger has flooded his Andrews but all across the Greater Toronto Area, from Toogood Pond in Ave. backyard for four years, for his two sons Unionville to Bronte Marsh in Oakville, skaters have been drawn by and friends, with the help of the Jiffy Ice Rink the freedom to race on and on unfettered by rink boards and package. This year, he may be iced out. timetables. Tag and Save Skating on a natural pond or a homemade flooded rink: What could Tag and save this article to your be more exhilarating, healthy or fun? And, more recently, doomed? Del.icio.us favourites. What is Del.icio.us? Not one of Toronto's natural ponds, for years maintained by the city for public skating, opened last winter. Centennial Park in Etobicoke closed its natural ice rink in 2000. L'Amoreaux Park in Scarborough, also closed. Toogood Pond didn't open last winter for the first time in five years because it didn't freeze to the 20-centimetre (eight-inch) thickness the town of Markham requires for safety. (Markham, which has no artificial outdoor rinks, has optimistically introduced an ice-rink program for community volunteers to flood rinks in their neighbourhoods.) As winter temperatures appear to be rising, skating on natural ice may be a thing of the past, something we remember, the way we remember wearing scratchy woollen socks when we go out in the cold instead of smooth, modern polypropylene ones. It's taken climatologist David Phillips a few years to come to the conclusion, but finally he says our winters are different from the way they used to be. January, with a recorded average temperature slightly above zero, was the warmest on record. Looking at the last 25 winters in the Great Lakes region, he found that temperatures were warmer than normal 15 of those years, five were normal and five were cooler than normal. Add to that, says Phillips, this is an El Niño year where warm air from the equatorial Pacific warms the water currents and with it, the air above. In Ontario, we will feel the effects of warm ocean air instead of cold Arctic air. "There is a clear connection between our winters and El Niño," he says. "They favour a warmer and dryer winter than normal. Our winters have changed and the business of making backyard skating rinks is out the window." The last good old-fashioned winter was 2003, says Phillips. "It was a degree colder than normal, when you could truly make a good ice rink in Toronto." A reminder of how warm last winter was: Feb. 26 was a cross-Canada day of action to bring climate change to the attention of people who might not have thought much about it. Called Save Ice Hockey, Stop Climate Change, it took place the same day the Kyoto protocol came into effect internationally. Though February weather is typically excellent for skating, it rained. "There was thunder, lightning, everyone was drenched and there were puddles of water on the ice," says Franz Hartmann, energy activist at the Toronto Environmental Alliance. "People played anyway. It was as if nature was illustrating a point." 1 of 4 He says it's not so much climate change as catastrophic change. "We're losing the ability to do something Canadians have done for hundreds of years, go outside and skate and play hockey, unless they use an artificial rink. And how are they made? By burning energy to make the ice. This is the irony we find ourselves in." The pond, throughout its entire length was on great sheet of shining crystal, a mirror of ice, smooth as glass, reflecting the white light of the full moon. Though the city of Toronto helps community groups flood local parks, none of the 28 natural rinks that volunteers and city staff worked on got off the ground because the season was so mild. They were opened for a few days at most. There will likely be fewer this year. After a mild winter, there's a decline in community requests, says Wynna Brown of Toronto's Parks, Forestry and Recreation. Which is the reason you can't help but admire Thomas Neal's tenacity. For four years he's laboured over a rink in Glen Stewart Ravine, a place in the Beach so evocative of Canada in winter, hockey legend Guy Lafleur made a commercial there. A real estate agent, whose hours are flexible, and a father of three, Neal shovelled off the snow during the day so mothers could bring their small children. He'd have it ready in the late afternoon so older kids could have a game of shinny before it got too dark. "You have to give kids a place to go after school," he says. `How are (artificial rinks) made? By burning energy to make the ice. This is the irony' Franz HartmanN energy activist But last year was the hardest test. It took him a week to get the rink ready. He spent every day flooding it with hoses the city dropped off for him, babying it really, spending up to 25 hours a week there. "I was damned determined to get it open," he says. The result? The rink was open for only one day. "Being Canadians, we are a northern people, a northern culture," he says. "When you see ice and skates are available, you want to skate." Another loss is the classic Canadian backyard rink. Whether you were a new Canadian just finding your way or had lived here since William Lyon Mackenzie led his rebels down Yonge St., chances are your dad might lay a rink over the backyard potato patch. Richard Sanger, a poet and playwright, grew up in Ottawa with homemade rinks. "You'd play hockey for two minutes, in a sudden rush, and breathe deeply and you'd feel this release of endorphins. That's the great thing about skating outside. You breathe that really nice fresh air into your lungs." The father of two boys, 8 and 11, he's made outdoor rinks in his Andrews Ave. backyard for the last four years with the help of a handy device known as Jiffy Ice Rink — three metres by six metre (10 ft. by 20 ft.) plastic bags filled with five centimetres (two inches) of water. After a few nights of temperatures well below freezing, they're ready for skating and the top layer of plastic is peeled away to reveal a smooth ice surface. The kids put their skates on in the kitchen and head out. (The rink was too small for Sanger to skate on himself.) The first years, the rink was a great success and went on for months; last year, the weather was against him and he never got it going properly. Sanger doesn't want to make too much of rinks and their part in our self-identity as Canadians. "It doesn't need to have all these metaphysical overtones. What's interesting is how directly and concretely rinks create community. It's 2 of 4 a very nice paradox to think that the real melting pots of Toronto may be these refrigerated outdoor rinks on which skaters and hockey players and all comers whirl round and round. "Outdoor rinks are open (to the elements and other things). One always assumes one can skate there unless told otherwise. "At indoor arenas you assume the opposite. The ice is booked." Some dates: The outdoor skating season officially started in Toronto yesterday with the opening of Harbourfront's Natrel Rink, Canada's largest artificial outdoor rink, which is privately run. City of Toronto rinks won't open for three more weeks, Dec. 9, except for Nathan Phillips Square, which opens Saturday (Nov. 25) and Mel Lastman Square and Albert Campbell Square (at the Scarborough Civic Centre), which open Dec. 2. Two other community rinks, Rennie Park in the Swansea area and Dufferin Grove, also open Dec. 2, largely because of community activism and, in the case of Rennie, because it is home to the largest outdoor not-for-profit hockey league in the world. Some community activists, like Jutta Mason at Dufferin Grove, say the season for the city rinks — "treasure chests, very intelligently set up" — is unnecessarily short. Since there's a shortage of arenas, which already have waiting lists and are expensive — evening ice time costs $200 an hour or more (as the Sunday Star recently reported) — the city should make greater use of its outdoor rinks, she says. Mason argues the rinks should open this week, rather than stay open later, as Toronto has tried to do to allow children to skate during March break. She says the ice is better at the beginning of the season. "How many extra hours of ice time would we have? People lose the desire for winter by the end of February, whereas at the beginning of November, we have kids banging on the doors." Dufferin Grove volunteers looked at weather records, including angle of the sun, hours of daylight and sunlight and temperature to make their point.

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