Among the many reasons to hate television is the way it makes most people who skate appear to be demented or depressed.
If it’s not a sports “highlight” segment giving us one of the boxing matches that liberally punctuate hockey “games,” then it’s one of those competitions that focus on performers awaiting their scores with the same sort of enthusiasm a person shows while awaiting the results of a biopsy. (And let’s just forget the whole Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan fiasco, OK?)
To those who only see skaters on TV, it must seem as if putting on a pair of skates can transform a person into a barroom brawler or a candidate for a psychiatrist’s couch.
But those of us who live here are able to see another side of the story and one chapter was being written on a recent night by those who were gliding, slipping, sliding and falling all over the ice on the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink in Millennium Park, which was created last winter with $5 million from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.
Osgood took the picture above on a relatively balmy afternoon, but on this night, the temperature had plummeted sufficiently to remind us what a real Chicago winter is all about. Those entering the new Park Grill restaurant, which fronts the rink, marveled at the number of people outside.
The kids working the rental counter–skating is free, skates are $5 to rent–were a busy though not talkative bunch.
How many skaters tonight?
“I guess a lot,” said one girl.
What do you think is the appeal of skating?
“Huh?” said all them at once.
Oh, well. Observing a rink tells you that skating is one of the few sporting activities that can be enjoyed no matter the level of skill. The frustration, anger and four-letter words one encounters on a golf course or tennis court rarely exist on ice.
Yes, it is different on professional and competitive levels, where stakes are high and fun is just memory. But at any rink around here, when a skater goes down, he or she invariably giggles. When skaters fumble along the railing trying to stay upright, most do so without embarrassment, even with a sort of gleeful determination.
It’s almost–almost–enough to make you wish that winter lasted longer.
