This past winter a new
ice rink opened its doors in the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park. Previously it was the only borough in the
city lacking a rink. Not only that, but
the rink was outdoors! I heard it about
it thanks to the news and facebook, since it’s operated by the same company
which does World Ice Arena and City Ice Pavilion. Typically I don’t head up to the Bronx much,
but thanks to a good friend of mine, big Steve G, I had an excuse to go visit regularly
this past winter.
Previously Steve and
I played outdoors in the winter at Lasker Rink in Central Park. Due to circumstances, we ended up both not
registering there this season. During
the holidays Steve shot me a message to take a visit up north at Van
Cortlandt’s new rink for pond hockey. It
turns out this was the same neighborhood he grew up in. Next thing you know it was Thursday night and
after a quick 22 minute drive from North Flushing, I made it to the rink.
Parking at the rink is really simple thanks to the metered
parking on the street right next to it.
Because of the meters which are in effect until 10pm, there’s ample
spaces available to jump right out and into the facility. The facility is an outdoor rink built atop
fenced in tennis courts. Next to it is a
building, which appears to be temporary for the winter. There’s no locker rooms, although there are
bathrooms in a separate temporary building which you walk outside to get to. But it’s not really an issue because the
place is pretty much dead around the time pond hockey starts. On average we would only have about 4 skaters
every Thursday, so it wasn’t a big deal changing in front of 3 other dudes
doing the same thing.
The rink itself is a bit different. There are literally only boards, no
glass. Because of this you were advised
to keep your shots low. There are no
goalies either for pond hockey. Instead
you shoot on mini-goals, like the ones
used in knee hockey, albeit made of metal. Early in the season I did want to work on
raising the puck with a new SE16 stick Ray had given me. I went to one end of the ice and swung the
puck up high. It really looked like it
was going to sail straight out of the rink and right into the glass window of
the building, but thankfully I didn’t have enough on it to go that far. Whew.
Although the last night we went there I did ring one off the crossbar, but
thankfully this was on the other end of the ice and the puck just went over the
chain-link fence into the park.
It wasn’t packed since the rink is in its first season. We did however get to meet a rotating cast of
players who would show up every week as Steve and I were typically the only
regulars. The small amount of players
made the games casual and fun, and best yet you really felt like you were out
there on the ice alone on a lonely cold winter night. Not only do you get ample time with the puck,
but it really gave you a lot of ice time to work on things, such as I did to
practice hockey stops on my offside foot.
I started off very awkward, but by the end of the season I had finally
gotten the muscle memory down.
There’s really no better way to experience ice hockey than outdoors
in the winter in a park. It’s why I
liked playing as Lasker Rink so much, and it holds true at Van Cortlandt as
well. In fact Van Cortlandt beats out
Lasker, because it’s also located right next to the street under the shadow of
the elevated 1 train. On one side you
get views of darkened outlines of trees, while on the other you get sounds from
the train rolling into the station and applying air brakes. Very uniquely New York.
Playing out there with Steve was a pleasure. We were able to play 2 on 2, do drills, joke
around on the ice, and then head out for a few beers a Riverdale Diner down the
road. A true hockey winter experience. The rink closed up shop for the season last
month, but I’m looking forward to seeing it again next year. I did bring my helmet camera one night, which
you can see the highlights below:
