Cold feet

Cold feet keep you awake at night and make your toes ache. If your feet are cold, the rest of you is cold. Please note, cold feet is not a metaphor here - I don't mean cold feet in any way other than, well, cold feet. The reason I am thinking about cold feet is because, at the moment, my feet are cold. We've just come in - the short distance between warm car and warm house was enough to put a chill in my bones. And it started me wondering about hockey players, specifically those playing in the outdoor game this afternoon and the old guys who played yesterday in freezing temperatures. I don't wonder about hockey players often; I'm not embedded in the great Canadian obsession, but thinking about skating on outdoor ice took me back to skating when I was a kid.

The outdoor skating rink was large, well-kept and close to home. I spent a great deal of happy time during my growing up years, skating on outdoor ice to waltz music played over loud speakers, then warming up in the skate shack, sitting on the wooden bench next to the glowing wood stove. And sometimes I got cold feet, depending on how many pairs of socks were inside my skates which in turn was relative to how the skates fit. Was I wearing last year's skates (thin socks), this year's skates (heavy socks) or next year's skates (several pairs of socks)? Mostly, when my feet got cold, I had the good sense to go home.

Today skates worn by athletes, are made of light synthetic material and molded to the wearer's feet. Someone told me that they don't even wear socks. Wind chill yesterday and today was around -30 C. I couldn't help but think, not so much about the fans in the stands, but about the hockey players, bare feet laced into cold skates, out there in that cold. Their feet must have been like popsicles. Makes me shiver - going to put on socks now.