Stanley Cup Playoffs 2013 and memories of my childhood love of ice-skating and playing hockey…

When I was a very little girl, I lived in Boston.  My Dad was in the Navy and stationed in Boston, and because my Mom comes from Boston, her entire family lived nearby.  I still remember, to this day, getting a pair of ice skates from one of my aunts… it must have been my 4th or 5th birthday.  The ice skates were those metal kind with the leather straps and double runners. I loved those skates. I remember my Mom taking me ice skating with those wiggly little skates and loving every second of it. I don’t remember the cold. I just remember the freedom of ice skating.

As I was about to turn 6, my Dad was transferred to San Diego. My family tearfully said good-bye to family and to Boston and we made that long, exciting cross-country trip.  I took my skates, of course.  That would be my first reality check with the West Coast.  No frozen ponds.  But that didn’t stop me from wearing the little dark blue “twirling skirt”, as I called it, one with an ice-skate applique. It was a gift from an aunt in Boston. I loved that little ice-skating skirt and wore it all the time…

… in California!

Four years later, my Dad was transferred back to the East Coast, to New Hampshire.  Ah. I had loved every second of our time in California, but it was time to ice-skate again.  My parents bought me my first pair of white figure skates for Christmas. I was 9 years old.  I also wanted a new “twirling skirt”, but that didn’t happen. Yet.

A couple of years ago, I wrote 31 Letters to my grandkids, telling them all about my childhood and the things I remembered, or learned, or cherished the most.  One of those letters was about my love of ice-skating; and while watching all the incredible excitement of our Boston Bruins and the Stanley Cup Playoffs 2013, my mind and my heart are transported back to my childhood and my imagination wanderings from way-back-when.

This is the letter I wrote and mailed to my grandkids:

Hi, my darlings!  In this letter, I am remembering what it was like to be young… and filling my days with adventures.  Some of my best adventures involved ice skating in New Hampshire.

There was a pond that we passed on the way to school each day.  From the bus windows, I saw that pond change as the seasons changed.  In the spring, it rippled with the wind and happily reflected the new leaves that smiled into it.  It was deep blue in the summer, welcoming birds to take their daily dips.  It was dark gray in the fall, and surrounded with glorious yellow and orange and red trees.

But in the winter, that pond danced with joy.  It seemed to love its ice-blanket and the brilliant white snow that hugged its banks.  Most especially, though, that pond loved the children who came each day to ice skate.

I couldn’t wait to get home from school each day to grab my ice skates and head to that pond with my friends.  I still remember tossing those long, tied-together ice skates over my shoulder.  I had those rubber blade protectors to keep them from stabbing the sharp ends into my jacket.  We walked to the pond… past farms and along a winding road.  The pond, I think, belonged to someone.  It seemed to be part of someone’s property, but it was very close to the road and no-one ever chased us kids off.

The great adventure was the walk to the pond.  We never knew how many kids were going to be there or who would be there.  We didn’t know for sure until we actually saw the pond.  Some days, the pond would be very busy with kids… other days, it was empty.  It was on the empty days that we had our greatest adventures.

You see, I was a girl.  I had white figure skates, but I wanted to play hockey.  When there were just a few kids on the ice, me and my friends could play hockey with the boys.  Someone always had a hockey puck.  Oh… I forgot to tell you that I also brought a hockey stick to the pond, too.  My very own hockey stick. Almost every time I went.  Just in case.  Hockey was like escaping into another world.  It was fast and rough and the boys didn’t care if we were girls.  They knocked us down and pushed us into snow banks and made us play.  One day, I got knocked to the ice so hard that it knocked the wind out of me.  I remember laying on the ice, scared out of my wits, wondering if I’d ever breathe again…

The boys didn’t care.  They kept right on playing. We didn’t have nets or scoreboards or referees.  We just had skates, our sticks, a puck, and our rules and our imaginations.

Just as it was getting dark, we’d tie our ice skates together and head back down that winding road toward home.  The street lights would be on as I trudged into my home, cold and wet… back from a great adventure.

At night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I would think of the next day.  I would think about hockey and the great maneuvers I’d make.  I would wander back to that pond with the ice blanket and snow banks and boys and girls like me… and I would be the hero of the game!

Oh, man, would I be the hero of the game!

I am smiling right now, thinking back to the girl I once was… and all the hockey adventures I wandered off to, in real life and in my dreams!

I’d love to know all about your great adventures and where your imaginations wander!

Love from this very grown-up girl (who’d love to play hockey with you some day),
Grandma Couto

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My family would move to Rhode Island when I was about to turn 13. We lived near a shallow little river/stream that would freeze every winter… and boy (or girl!), did I spend lots of time making ice-skating memories on cold winter afternoons, still playing hockey in my white figure skates!

But it wouldn’t be ’til the winter of 2010, at age 57, that I fulfilled a life-long dream of ice-skating at the Ice-Rink at Rockefeller Center… and even more perfect, with my two granddaughters, Taylor and Maddie, and my husband Barry; in, of course, “twirling skirts”!  (Well, not Barry in a twirling skirt!)

Ah. Memories.

Think of all the memories you are helping to create for your kids every single day; memories that they will store and cherish and recall when they are grandparents, like me.  It’s the greatest gift of all!

And – GO BRUINS!