Canada's frozen ponds provide the gateway to its national pastime. But the outdoor ice season is shrinking -- and concern is rising.
The Northern Lights appear in the sky over Hay River, Northwest Territories, during the 2022 Polar Pond Hockey tournament. HAY RIVER, Northwest Territories -- It is a frigid Saturday afternoon in mid-March, cold enough that the breath coming from the small faces pressed up against the panoramic window in Hay River's one-room airport immediately covers the glass in an icy fog.
From 10,000 feet above the 60th parallel, the ice seems to touch everything. A ribbon of road curls around the western half of the frozen Great Slave Lake, a streak of a railway darts south toward Alberta and a tiny outcropping of buildings comprising the 3,000-person town of Hay River sits where those two paths cross. And beyond that, the ice appears to be unending and unyielding.
The plane is carrying four Olympic medals, five Stanley Cup rings and the players who earned them: 2010 Olympic MVP Meghan Agosta and a trio of former Edmonton Oilers -- Craig MacTavish, Andrew Ference and Curtis Glencross. The incoming hockey stars pose for pictures and sign autographs until the cold makes their hands too stiff to comfortably hold a pen.
In Helsinki, Finland, which sits at roughly the same latitude as Hay River, a group of hockey friends noticed the anecdotal declines in their time on the ice outside and wanted to see if their memories of longer winters were accurate. They teamed up with a local meteorologist and used historical weather data to determine that the outdoor skating season for Finns has dropped from roughly 80 days per year in the late 1800s to under 50 days per year in the 21st century.
According to scientists, the cold weather needed for outdoor hockey is growing less frequent and more erratic. A different group of scientists at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, expects the season to continue shrinking at an increasing rate in the most populated parts of Canada.
But in a town that depends on being able to predict the winter weather accurately, the residents are aware of and wary of the changes. The months-long stretches of frigid temperatures are now spotted with unexpected warm patches, which have caused damaging floods and slowed down industries that rely on the ice roads that connect small towns and mining operations in the region.
Former Edmonton Oiler Andrew Ference hit the ice with kids at the Polar Pond Hockey tournament in Hay River. "That's the power of sports," said Ference, the former Oiler and Edmonton-area native who also won a Stanley Cup ring with the Bruins during his 16-year NHL career."We all want the same things. We all want clean air and clean water and a good place for our kids. We might need to discuss how to get there, but we all want the same stuff.
"A tournament like this, it's just the same as a wedding or a party. It's an excuse for having a good time," Ference said."Up north when there is ice everywhere, it's just a good excuse to get together at the time of the year when you need it the most. You make friends and make memories during a depressing time of the year."
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