If there’s such a thing as the perfect hockey game, it would likely take place on a frozen pond. It’s where the sport was born, and the game is as pure as the ice carved by Mother Nature. From the heartbeat-boosting crisp, cold winds to the freedom of playing among the elements, outdoor hockey is unlike anything else.
There are no boards or boundaries. The only rules are that you need to bring a shovel and to end the game at sunset. Miles from arenas and manufactured ice, the pond embodies the true spirit of hockey. In this setting you come to the awe-inspiring realization that the game is a gift.
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—Author Unknown
With a little luck, we men and women of Maine on blades will enjoy a month more of pond hockey. A fair chunk of December and all of January delivered remarkably clear and cold conditions in upper New England, rapidly transforming our watery landscapes into prime playgrounds for outdoor puck. And it wasn’t just our usual ponds and lakes freezing over fast and thick but even rivers. It was a weather pattern quite discouraging for skiers and snowmobilers but soul-stirring for pond hockey players.
February has brought a wholly different weather pattern. We still have delightfully frigid temps, day and night, but some big snows are now belatedly arriving. This requires the labor of some serious shoveling, including some tractor driven snow removal out on the ice, to keep our games going. But now the mountain dwelling recreating set is happy as well.
On a recent Saturday after a couple of hours of pond ice maintenance I was seated on a bench next to one of my favorite outdoor recreational hockey players, Lare, a retired New Englander boasting more than 50 years of experience playing pond hockey in these parts. He got animated explaining to me what this winter in Maine had meant to his family of skaters.
Since Christmas Eve, Lare shared, his children and or grandchildren had skated with him literally every day, across ponds and streams and rivers and miles-long lakes. “I can’t remember any winter, in my entire life, delivering so prolonged a stretch of skateable ice,” he told me. “And not just skateable but pristine skating surfaces.”
Like Lare and his family I’ve skated outdoors more this winter than with any winter I can ever recall. This is my sixth winter of skating as a New Englander with a distinctly committed and impassioned group of hockey purists, and over the years we’ve enjoyed some remarkable joys and memories together. But with each passing weekend this winter we are coming to appreciate how novel a slate of mercury and dry air has enveloped our home.
It’s been a meteorological wonder that has enveloped all of us and is occasioning exchanges of memorable email messaging and imagery. Another skater in our group, Mike, more recently retired than Lare and an equally accomplished stick handler, sent our group this message a little over a week ago:
Guys, Gals,
Hasn’t the 2025 season been phenomenal? Consistent games with great ice 3-4 days per week with a great group that clearly loves the game and enjoys the camaraderie. So many beautiful bluebird days on a great pond.
As I thought about how lucky we are to enjoy this [and started talking with others recently while removing our skates] we all came to realize the primary reason for our happiness —[our hosts] Kris and Sue. I’ve been over to that property so many times over the past many years. Not uncommonly Kris is at work or in NH skiing while a large group freely walks onto his property and plays for a few hours.
I do not know ANYONE ELSE that so openly and without any conditions allows friends, acquaintances, and some people they don’t even know to arrive in the front yard and stay for hours.
I’m pretty sure if I left for a weekend and 25 people were hanging on my property for 3 hours a few flags would get raised in protest.
As most of us know, Kris also allows unlimited use of his tractor/snowblower on a regular basis to keep the pond in great shape — thank you Andrew/Spencer/Mike for leading that aspect.
A group of us discussed this and would like to collect some $$$ for some type of gift card (yet to be determined and open to suggestions) as a sign of our appreciation to both Kris and Sue for their unparalleled generosity.
Let’s not wait till the end of the season. For those that have used the pond this year as well as past seasons, hand me cash at the pond or send money via venmo to me with a note referencing the pond. All donations will be anonymous so give whatever inspires you.
We’ve enjoyed a handful of days this winter when quite literally everything came together to deliver pond hockey conditions you’d be moved to try and compose poetry about: a cloudless blue sky on a windless weekend morning hosting a strong sun that glistened surrounding, snow-shrouded tree branches; black ice free of perilous pressure cracks; crisp and clean winter air filling our older lungs; evenly selected sides recreating competitively but not too competitively, for hours, impulsively leading to protracted games of “sudden death” whose conclusions end up defying death . . . until we’re simply too exhausted to go any longer; and most especially the camaraderie of ageless hockey hearts.
When I’m not skating the private pond near my home I often take a few turns out on a community-cared-for skating oasis in the heart of Yarmouth, Maine, just a few miles down the road from me. The generational demographics there are decidedly different from my ‘home’ skates. The pond sits hard by North Yarmouth Academy and predictably attracts many academy students once school has let out for the day, including players from the boys and girls hockey teams. On weekends scores of young families also lace up skates here, many introducing their toddlers to skating.
The pond is further distinguished by being lit for nighttime skating, and city workers routinely maintain the surface with snowblowers and hoses to refresh the sheet.
But what I like best about the Yarmouth pond is its cozy brick warming hut, which features a working fireplace. Driving by the pond last night along Rt. 1, I saw the fireplace aglow from my Jeep as more than a dozen young skaters chased a single puck in between two pond hockey goals. I had to pull over and snap a few pics; it seemed like a postcard from an idyllic pond hockey setting.
We live in an era when many are rightly concerned about youths and their device addictions and corresponding inactivity, particularly with respect to healthy outdoor recreation. But standing by the pond in Yarmouth last night, a Wednesday evening in the heart of the school calendar, I saw a hearty number of youths in a community addicted instead to a game that is a gift, from Nature. And this is a large part of the reason why I proudly call Maine my final home.
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