I was thinking the other day about what hockey players do with their girlfriends and I thought that ice skating would be an obvious choice, but then I thought they might think, "if I see another rink, I will kill someone." Maybe they ask their girlfriend what they do for a living. "Oh, you work in an office typing and stapling all day. Awesome. I wanna watch you do that. I want to romantically look into your eyes doing that."
Ice skating is really one of those go-to dates that you only go on when you've completely run out of ideas and there is nothing else exciting to do. So a couple of weekends, I took my girlfriend ice skating, joining the ranks of other couples scraping the bottom of the barrel for their romantic activities.
It had been some time since I had been skating. The old style of skates relied entirely on shoestrings tied up and wrapped around like a Rubik's cube made of string. The new style of skate is like a plastic tie strap. It comes across as a very Playskool My First Skate feel. The beauty of this style is that it comes in two flavors. Ridiculous blood-clotting tightness or extremely clumsy, don't-take-turns-too-hard-or-at-all, ankle twisting looseness.
After the battle to attach swords to our feet, it was time to take to the ice. There was a rec-league hockey game that had recently ended, so the ice was a little chippy, but surely a Zamboni would take to the ice to resurface it any second. After eighty solid minutes, hope dwindled, my faith unrewarded in any capacity, ice rinks, hockey, Christmas. It became a belligerent evening as a fire code breaking crowd took to the ice, reducing it to mere frictionless concrete as one point.
The wonderful thing about exerting a modicum of physical energy around other guys creates an exponential growth of testosterone and destroys any inhibitions about competitions or skill level. I hadn't been skating since I was twelve, but I really thought I could be the greatest skater in the world. What started as romantically holding my girlfriend's hand and gently striding with her quickly evolved into a race against myself and other boyfriends. Three strides in, I felt I was the king of the rink, before quickly being humbled by a out of nowhere wall, because all great dates should end with a trip to the ER.
The rink was terrible. There was no couples skate, or guys only, or girls only skating, but it did take my mind off of hockey for one night. So thank you, local ice house.
Ice skating is really one of those go-to dates that you only go on when you've completely run out of ideas and there is nothing else exciting to do. So a couple of weekends, I took my girlfriend ice skating, joining the ranks of other couples scraping the bottom of the barrel for their romantic activities.
It had been some time since I had been skating. The old style of skates relied entirely on shoestrings tied up and wrapped around like a Rubik's cube made of string. The new style of skate is like a plastic tie strap. It comes across as a very Playskool My First Skate feel. The beauty of this style is that it comes in two flavors. Ridiculous blood-clotting tightness or extremely clumsy, don't-take-turns-too-hard-or-at-all, ankle twisting looseness.
After the battle to attach swords to our feet, it was time to take to the ice. There was a rec-league hockey game that had recently ended, so the ice was a little chippy, but surely a Zamboni would take to the ice to resurface it any second. After eighty solid minutes, hope dwindled, my faith unrewarded in any capacity, ice rinks, hockey, Christmas. It became a belligerent evening as a fire code breaking crowd took to the ice, reducing it to mere frictionless concrete as one point.
The wonderful thing about exerting a modicum of physical energy around other guys creates an exponential growth of testosterone and destroys any inhibitions about competitions or skill level. I hadn't been skating since I was twelve, but I really thought I could be the greatest skater in the world. What started as romantically holding my girlfriend's hand and gently striding with her quickly evolved into a race against myself and other boyfriends. Three strides in, I felt I was the king of the rink, before quickly being humbled by a out of nowhere wall, because all great dates should end with a trip to the ER.
The rink was terrible. There was no couples skate, or guys only, or girls only skating, but it did take my mind off of hockey for one night. So thank you, local ice house.
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