The Rink

In the winter the “rink” was a mecca for kids of all ages. The skating rink is a sunken area smack in the middle of town about half the size of a football field, conveniently located right next to the clinic. It was constructed during the Great Depression as a WPA project together with the warming house with its native stone chimney. Thank you FDR.

The warming house was walled with wooden benches and a wood-coal stove in the middle. The warming house oozed the smell of wood smoke, sweat, wet and singed wool and was open every night of the week and all day Saturday - and Sundays after church and dinner. The stove was faithfully stoked by Ed Flynn and served to warm frostbitten appendages, since there was never a weather reason that kept us off the rink. 

Around December 1st, when the temperatures were right and the winds were calm, the fire department would flood the rink for the skating pleasure of the community – a scientific, several day process to assure smooth and durable ice, each evening laying down a layer of ice when the temperature was to drop into the teens. Too cold or warm produced bad ice. But, invariably, flooding would form some air pockets which collapsed into potholes, hazards resulting in head over tea-kettle crashes. The only solution for ice issues was the fire hose - Zamboni was an unknown term. Pretty remarkable how well that large ice surface was maintained.

Crack the whip

pom pom pull away or pump pump pull away?

Standing next to the warming house was a yard light casting a 30-foot arc of light, not quite reaching into the far corners of the rink - but the dark helped us avoid being tagged in full rink pump-pump-pull-away games. This tag game consisted of two teams, offense and defense. Initially the defense was a single person, but grew with each tagged person until offense was down to one. "Pump-pump-pullaway--come away or I'll pull you away". Or crack-the-whip. I wasn't strong enough to take the "crack" role and I tried to avoid being the end of the whip as that fate was a nose dive to the ice or a launch into a snowbank. I was a pretty good skater - on figure skates. Hockey skates were a rarity. But my ankles were weak so I tended to skate on the inside edges, so no Olympic hopeful I. But I was generally one of the last few skaters tagged, just before everyone ganged up on quick skating Bobby Dingwall.

This was Minnesota winter so snowfall was a regular happening. The warming house had a couple 4-foot wide 2-handle shovels for clearing snow from the ice. This work had a clear reward so it was something we did much more willingly than clear our own sidewalks at home. We vied for the job - if the snowfall wasn't too heavy. Skating behind this shovel and barreling the snow into the bank was pretty fun. In small town Lowry, you took your thrills where you could get them.

The rink was usually divided into halves – the north end was for the pickup hockey games with goals set up with a couple chunks of firewood and the south-end for the pleasure skaters. Evenings, the entire rink was often devoted to tag or crack the whip or skating circles around each other. Once in a great while, usually on a Sunday night - after some masterful coercion and organizing (usually by the Engebretson boys) - the entire rink was co-opted for a full rink hockey game late in the evening. "Hockey Night in Lowry" drew a crowd. The goalie was a brave soul – no padding, gloves or mask or special stick. So pucks off the shins – or higher - were tear-jerking. These games were for the “big kids”. I was just a spectator, but I loved watching it and listening to the carving sound of skates on ice. And a few curses.

Each fall the hardware store would lay in a stock of ice skates, hockey sticks and pucks. There was not much profit margin since Uncle Dave didn’t want to deny kids the opportunity to skate.  There were some pretty good deals for some families with a bunch of kids.

We loved to play hockey. Of course, we knew next to nothing about hockey rules. Offside was a football term; icing was on a cake. We were essentially playing basketball rules. But what a conglomeration of characters. Some sliding around in boots; some in figure skates; a few in hockey skates and a couple with speed skates; some with a stick without a blade in lieu of a real hockey stick. And the goalie screaming “No Raising!”  (We had to take turns at goalie as it was the rare kid who would willingly stop a puck off the ice). We could not have imagined the spectacle that the Minnesota State Hockey Tournament would become. In 1957, the NHL had but six teams, all east of Minnesota, and hockey as an organized high school sport was mainly played in the northern Minnesota Iron Range region plus a few St. Paul City schools - Eveleth, International Falls, Roseau & St. Paul Johnson dominant.

And ... the rink was a popular date night location. The price was right and a spooning couple could skate to the dark northwest corner of the rink. The beginning of an education for me - filed away for future reference.

But the rink was not just a winter recreation site. In spring, summer and fall, it served as baseball and football field. Soccer? Never heard of it.