Pond Hockey’s Therapeutic Touch
If you ask any hockey player what they look forward to the most once winter comes, it’s playing pond hockey. Pond hockey is a game inside of a game, a game of its own really. Once you hit the ice, it’s just like normal hockey, except scratch the rules. It’s so easy to get caught up in the game and forget you’re outside in -20C weather with only a hoodie and track pants on. 
Malcolm Arseneau’s been playing pond hockey ever since he was a little kid, he said “Being out here on the pond, it’s freezing. But after a couple of hard laps, once the blood gets flowing, it feels like the cold doesn’t exist.”
A huge part to playing it is the lasting relationships and memories you make. Real connections with strangers can be built by something as small as having the same hockey stick. In a minute, it can go from showing up to the rink with one of your friends to playing in a game with everyone else there too. The game has a way of cheering anyone up, allowing people to escape their daily issues for a few hours. The pond hockey community is one that truly makes a difference in people’s lives. Your day can easily change from the worst to the best by simply showing up to the pond and hoping in a random game, that’s the power of the game and the people who play it.
Compared to normally playing in leagues, a lot of people don’t understand how therapeutic pond hockey can be to the players. It’s commonly known that sports are a great way to heal when you need to let off some steam and adding a touch of mother nature and peace to the sport you already love; it creates an environment that you keep coming back to every day. Dave Johnson, another long-time pond player added that “Pond hockey is a way for the guys to escape our real-world stresses for a few hours, it’s also unreal because you can play at any time of day, in sunshine and snow. I’ll be out here almost every day from now on.”
Just like any sport, it has its dangers. Ripping around without helmets while skating at a speed of 25km an hour, the wind blowing in your face and realizing that one little mistake can lead to serious life-long injuries. That’s what makes it great, it’s crazily fun but no joke, and it makes you feel so alive. That’s what a lot of hockey players need nowadays, that feeling of actu
ally being alive instead of feeling controlled by their schedule since most of their days are scheduled so tightly; with meals, workouts, video sessions, and practicing/playing. After a while they’ll be almost robot-like with their routines, and it can affect their mental health without them even knowing. That’s why the players need pond hockey, it’s the game they love but without the stress of following those daily routines.
Pond hockey is honestly very underrated when it comes to the benefits it provides, especially the mental ones, most players are unaware that they need a balance in their everyday life. Hockey can’t be everything they do and think of. They need something to get away from the whole stressful hockey world. As funny as it may sound, more hockey, but on the pond, can lead to that balance since mother nature is present in the picture. Forgetting about how freezing you are in cold weather, making life-long memories, exposing yourself to danger, using the game as a little escape from your stressful life, and adding a spiritual touch to it; all of these make up why pond is a one of a kind game. Nobody can break the bond between a hockey player, the nature on Earth, and their sport.
