Current Skate of Mind

There are many different parts and pieces to an ice rink. There’s the Zamboni, the ice itself, the receptionists, the skate guards, the janitorial staff, the administrative staff and, of course, the coaches. I’ve thought long and hard about (and written about) the pros and cons of my particular role but I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s one rink job far more difficult and underappreciated than the rest: the job of the Rental Skate.

I’ve been working alongside Rental Skates for years, and I’ll admit it, I’ve never taken much notice. Well, that’s not true. I have noticed them and I’ve laughed. I’ve ridiculed. Okay, the full truth: I have been downright disrespectful, maybe even discriminatory.

One day, a child in my beginner class tugged on my coat sleeve. “Teacher?” she said (I’ve long stopped hoping for them to try and pronounce my name). “Teacher, my skates are broken.” I looked down. Her Rental Skates weren’t actually broken but they were in sorry shape. The buckles were undone, the tongues were wagging, and they were foaming at the mouth. It looked as if they had been run over by a car. “Oh, my,” I said to the little girl, trying to disguise my horror. I am ashamed to write that I did not feel empathy for this feeble footwear…I felt disgust.

“Where is your mother?” I asked. I certainly wasn’t going to bend down and touch them. Besides, performing triage right now would take time away from the other students. “She’s over there.” The little girl pointed her mitten toward the lobby at the other end of the rink, which might as well have been 100 miles away. I told her to wave, which she did, vigorously, but no one made any motions to come over. I considered sending this skater back out to the rental desk alone, but I knew that wasn’t particularly responsible, so I yelled out to the rest of the class, “Okay, try some dips!”

I sighed. I took off my own mittens (the coach version of rolling up the sleeves) and got down on bended knee. I first tried to stuff the plastic tongue back into the left skate without knocking the child over, but it seemed to have lockjaw. So I had her sit down, and I took the skate off her foot in order to deal with it more directly. I didn’t mean to be rough with the skate, but I was in a hurry. Despite being rushed, I did notice that the blue plastic was covered in lacerations. Out of curiosity, I quickly turned the boot over and ran my finger along the blade. It was sharp, yet, not in right direction; the bumpy nicks almost made it seem as if the toe pick extended along the whole length.

I finally got the tongue properly reinserted and had her push her foot back inside. I fiddled with the ski boot-style buckles, explaining while I did so that the skate should really be hugging her ankle and should feel a bit tighter than her sneakers. Then I started to address her other foot, except, wait…something was amiss. This one looked exactly the same and I don’t just mean that it had many similar injuries (which it did), but it was “exactly the same” in that it was also a left skate. Now I stood up and waved my arms wildly toward the lobby as if I were stranded on a highway. Help! S.O.S! Come now! Eventually, a mother stood, gathered up her coat, her toddler, and another kid in a stroller, then started making the trek toward the rink door. 

The situation was quickly rectified. We all said “woops!” chuckling, and moved on. But ever since then, I’ve been paying closer attention. What I’ve discovered has changed my perspective and I hope it will change yours, as well. What I’m asking, here, is to consider, really consider the plight of the Rental Skate.

Imagine that, basically, you are a knife for hire. You are worn by people who don’t really know how to correctly use you. Though you exist in the name of fun, you unintentionally harm beginner skaters on a regular basis, and get directly blamed for broken bones, sprains, and an unfathomable number of bruises. Every day, you participate in what are basically demolition derbies. You slam into the boards, you crash into other Rental Skates and every lap includes a number of near-misses that would make professional stunt men close their eyes. This has left you scarred.

But you really weren’t all that handsome to begin with. Maybe you are the tan-ish variety, the same color as paper bags, and striped red at the heel in the same manner as your cousin, the Rental Bowling Shoe. Or you are an elder figure skate, circa 1943, and you are graying and sagging with age. If you are the newest version, you are off-white with black trimmings. You are composed of extra-stiff plastic that is also somewhat shiny, so that you kind of look like a little white Darth Vader. But really, most of you are that weird color of blue plastic, not quite Smurf and not quite Blue Man Group, some indefinable shade in between. However you started out, you’re getting uglier by the session. Unfortunately, “plastic” surgery is not an option, or it’s never been offered, anyway.

Too often, you are forced to work in environments not included in your job description: the metal bleachers, the cement on the other side of the rink, even the parking lot. You are not provided with the protective gear, a.k.a. blade guards, that are always used in the private sector. You have no health insurance and the doctors assigned to your care have very little training. Mainly, you suffer from neglect, your ailments unnoticed or unreported. Instead of getting a bath, you get occasionally sprayed with noxious, aerosol “perfume”. At the end of the day, you are thrown into a heap and haphazardly sorted.

Though everything you do is a team effort, you sometimes get separated from your partner and re-matched with a Rental Skate of a different size or, as highlighted above, with your exact twin. You are basically abused, misunderstood and considered inferior to the other privately-owned skates in the rink. And you’ve seen how well those other white and black skates are treated. They are handled lovingly and gently wiped off. They are regularly taken for check-ups. They don’t hang upside-down on a hook all night, but are tucked into their own individual bags. Some of them even have fuzzy slippers and their own stuffed animals (Stink-eez!) designed to help them smell better.          

Imagine that your life is very very long. And that you work for its entirety, with no hope for retirement. You’ve never experienced anything like respect, or appreciation, or even, (until now) sympathy. The worst part is that, thanks to all of the above challenges and hardships, you’re not even very good at what you do.

In fact, the only pride you can take in your job is that you are an effective middleman. After wearing you, many decide to procure their own skates, those other ones. And, wait a second, when you think of it in this light, you, oh, Rental Skate, are truly a hero…you may be regularly dismissed, degraded, and quite smelly, but you are like a bridge, the best kind of bridge, because you lead to something better. It is with you that many dreams begin.  

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While working on this installment, a few people shared some funny Rental Skate stories…

One rink manager told me that people don’t really steal the skates that much anymore but… “We had that problem when we first opened up. There were a few creative ways. The most common was to bring a ratty pair of shoes, give those in exchange for rentals and put on your real shoes from your bag. We had a few weird ones. In one instance, a woman claimed that the rentals were actually hers, stolen from her by one of our employees. Another time, one guy, an adult, asked to buy a specific pair of rentals, as they fit him so well. I explained that I couldn’t do that. Two weeks or so later the skates were gone. I saw them on the guy a month later at public session, painted an awful brown color. You can’t make this stuff up.”

A man whose family has run a skate shop and rental window at another local rink since 1960 told me that when the kids hand over the skates, sometimes he’ll, as a joke, hand back only one shoe in return then go about his business, pretending not to notice. One little kid, who seemed like he was probably only about three years old, looked a his one shoe for a moment and then, with perfect aim, threw it right at this man’s head!

Thanks for reading. I’m sure you have some good stories as well. Please contribute to this Rental Skate Riff by clicking on “comment” below. 

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To read my icenetwork interview with the Gilles Family, click:

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080207&content_id=43520&vkey=ice_news

 Also notice that I’ve added some Interesting Links, over there, under “Pages” in the right hand column. Enjoy.

Well, the holidays are over. I don’t know about you, but I’m experiencing a bout of post-holiday blues; my cozy, pajamas-on-the-couch vacation is behind me and the long, cold winter stretches out ahead.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: coaching skating is a great gig, and there’s nothing else I’d rather do (well, besides cashing lottery checks and even if I did win, I’d probably still teach lessons). But the temperature of this profession from November through March can be more than a little problematic. Of course, in the summer, it’s a downright godsend, but that’s light years away, at this point, and not the focus of this discussion.

Allow me to clarify that there is a gigantic difference between skating in a cold environment and coaching in a cold environment. Even when you glide around with your students, you rarely generate enough body heat to have a real effect. The temperature is usually tolerable for the first hour or so, but once you get three or four hours in, you inevitably start to feel like an underdressed Eskimo.   

There are times, at the end of a workday, when I’m so cold I can hardly think, or I can only think about lasagna…diving into a large vat of it. There are times when my hands, my feet, and my face have gone beyond frozen to a scary state of numb. My shivering probably makes me look blurry to my students, as if I’m one big hummingbird wing. After my last lesson, I rush into my car and put the heat on full blast only to rediscover that it always starts off as an arctic wind far colder than air conditioning. While I wait for it to heat up, I worry that the violent chattering of my teeth could result in a jaw sprain or a cracked tooth. I wonder: when exactly does “hypothermia” set in?

A few years ago, I tried to comfort myself by making a list of careers that must be colder than ours. This is all I could come up with: 1. the foreman of an ice cream factory, 2. a roofer specializing in igloos,  3. a busker who plays guitar on Mt. Everest. Composing this list did not make me feel any warmer. In hindsight, perhaps burning it would have…

It could be that I’m particularly wimpy. I’m open to this theory because I am wimpy in many ways, however, I did grow up in Wisconsin in the years before global warming. (See prior installment - my father transformed our driveway into a rink with the simple spray of a garden hose.) In my formative years, on the rare days when I was not at an ice rink, I spent many an hour helping my brother construct sophisticated snow forts and extra-plump snowmen. I helped (okay lackadaisically, but still) my father shovel the driveway and helped my mother shovel our car out from various snowdrifts. So I’m no stranger to the cold.

It could be that the rinks I teach at are particularly chilly. You know how, when you come in from the cold, your face sometimes burns for a few moments? One night, when I came home from teaching at an outdoor rink, my face didn’t stop burning. I looked into the mirror to discover that my skin had become disturbingly splotchy and it stayed that way for hours. Those of you who know me are aware that I have an abnormal affection for polka dots - but not on my face! A call to my doctor the next day confirmed that I was probably going to live, but that I had contracted the very first stages of frostbite. I know a few coaches who have gotten more advanced frostbite in their toes, and this does not sound like a pleasant experience.

The temperature of indoor rinks varies. Ice surfaces apparently need to be somewhere between 24 to 28 degrees and the air is usually somewhere in the 50’s. Though, recently, at one of the rinks I teach at, an adult skater brought in a digital thermometer, just for kicks, and let’s just say that the reading was…well below the 50’s. It suddenly made perfect sense how, about a month ago, the ice pack I was using to nurse a shoulder injury was more frozen (rock solid!) at the end of my workday than at the beginning. Similarly, this New Year’s Eve, the rink nicely chilled a bottle of champagne I had tucked in my bag for later consumption.

Unsurprisingly, one of the most commonly uttered phrases in my work life is, “It’s so cold.” We coaches say this to each other as if it’s a revelation, as if it’s something new, as if we haven’t already mentioned it to each other four times that day and 65 times that week. Hearing the heartfelt, “I know,” in response, as your co-worker burrows further into her scarf, is comforting: at least we’re in this together. 

During the ice cuts, we purchase more coffee or tea, we blow on our hands (or run them under the hot water in the restroom.) We sit in the lobby commiserating and fantasizing. Our eyes gloss over as we talk about things like electric blankets, and heated vests. One of my friends enjoyed the benefits of this latter invention until it busted. The other day, someone was regaling us with a tale about a rink somewhere in Massachusetts where there are a series of heating panels installed behind the benches for the benefit of the coaches, which sounds to me like nirvana. My latest hair brain idea is to develop and bring into fashion a sort of “nose cozy,” perhaps knit in a variety of styles: an orange beak, a pink snout, or a red homage to Rudolph. What do you think?    

All of us have already devoted a lot of cognitive energy (and funds) to combating the cold.

Of course, the most important survival mechanism is strategic layering. For me, this starts with a layer of long johns and ends with a ball-gown length down-feather coat. It’s kind of a like a sleeping bag with arms. Of course, every time I want to demonstrate something, I have to hike it up to my waist like a bride walking through a puddle so that my students can actually see my feet and legs. The middle layers consist of a combination of fleece, wool, gore-tex…and, on the advice of a friend, I have recently discovered the thermal power of cashmere. I’ve always owned a few cashmere sweaters, but I’ve made the mistake of saving them for special occasions (a.k.a., when they could actually be seen, silly me). I didn’t realize, until now, that this luxuriously soft material is also quite practical. Snowpants are also a key ingredient. The few times I’ve tried to cut corners and teach just in my jeans, I might as well have been naked.

What you have to remember is to put on your skates before you apply your final layers because the bulk factor can make it difficult to bend forward. In fact, not being able to reach your feet is a good way of gauging whether or not you have enough layers on. Of course, once I have all my gear in place, I look about as large as a Kodiak bear. In the summer, it is common for skating parents who observe us coaches arriving at the rink in our shorts, to marvel at all the weight we’ve lost. Of course, in actuality, it’s just that they’re not used to seeing us in less than 44 layers.

Hats are a given, though your hair will pay the price, as it will look perpetually smooshed. I’ve found that mittens definitely trump gloves; it’s optimal for the fingers to huddle together. And, on the most extreme days, if you supplement with one of those handwarming pouches, it’s as if your fingers have all gathered around a virtual campfire. The downside with mittens is that they severely affect your dexterity: you have to take them off in order to write anything down or to play a CD. They also impact your ability to give your student the “peace sign”, the “okay sign”, or the “do two more sign” with your fingers. Fortunately, you can still give an effective thumbs-up, or thumbs-down, whichever the situation calls for. 

One thing that has helped me survive morning teaching (but just barely - see the installment entitled Morning Madness) is my own personal space heater, which is about the size of an eight-inch cube. Lots of fellow coaches have invested in these. The problem, which we have learned the hard way, is that you can only plug so many of them into a power strip before you blow a fuse.  

Sometimes, the only thing that will thaw you out this time of year is a long, scalding shower or a very hot dinner. For this reason, last week I implemented Project S.O.U.P..  I made three different kinds and I’m happy to report that my freezer is now stocked with 17 servings of liquid heat. Next, I’m going to purchase some boot covers, which many claim to be lifesavers, or toe savers, at least. All these methods will surely help with the winter blahs, but I know, as we dig deep into February, I’ll need to employ more extreme tactics. Specifically, I’ll have no choice but to board a plane to visit my oldest and dearest skating friend. She now lives in Puerto Rico.

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If anyone has any other useful ideas or remedies on the topic of temperature, whether serious or facetious, please bring forth by clicking on “comment” below. And, I implore you, if I show up at the rink one day wearing a bank-robber style face mask or some kind of cashmere beak, please intervene. 

So the day I’m posting this missive, it is 65 degrees in New York. January 8. Go figure. 

Ha! A special thanks to Commenter #8 who has provided us with a link to a knitting website that includes an actual nosewarmer! That is just not something you see everyday… 

Well, the fall schedule is underway. What this means to me and many coaches I work with is that, instead of commuting to one rink, we take our show on the road to several different rinks to get ice time and, often, multiple rinks in one day. I actually enjoy the change of scenery and the different set of faces in each location. Besides, it’s nice how the car ride in between provides a break longer than an ice cut, and a respite from the sound of my own voice. The problem is that the more places you have to be, the more logistics and complications you have to contend with. Over the years, I’ve been trying to streamline my schlep, or at least make it more entertaining. Here’s what I’ve found so far:   

Transporting Tools of the Trade: Have you ever seen the clown act where he’s trying to carry an armful of balls? Every time he drops one and picks it up, another one falls and bounces away, culminating eventually in a maniacal juggling act. Until recently, this was pretty much my method of transport across rink parking lots around the county. Instead of colorful circus balls, I was juggling skates, rulebook, schedule, invoices, stereo, CDs, video camera, water, snacks, coffee, 15 layers of clothing (including hats, scarves, mittens, etc…)When I realized that this comedy routine was actually costing me lesson time, I knew I had to make some changes. 

The most logical solution I could think of was to sprout a second set of arms. When that didn’t work, I tried to hire a packing mule or a sherpa to help, but all of the ones who came out to do a cost estimate refused to take on such a heavy load. Just when I started to memorize the whole USFS rulebook, so that I could carry at least one less thing around, I remembered that there was a brilliant invention called “the wheel.” I looked around me and noticed that, like our skaters, most of my colleagues already had luggage-type bags with wheels attached and I promptly copied them. This has made a world of difference.  

Easy-Access Footwear: If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve laced and unlaced my skates. Occasionally, a bystander will marvel at how swiftly I do so. For example, like most coaches, I can walk through the rink’s front door 10 minutes after my students and still get on the ice before them. A cartoonist might depict this process as a tornado-like blur of hands, laces, cats, and dogs resulting in a perfect, giftwrap-worthy bow. But just because we’re speed-lacers doesn’t mean we should lace any more than absolutely necessary i.e. for that inferior form of footwear known as shoes. This is why I have switched almost exclusively to slip-ons. The infinite variations on the “clog” available today indicate that many people in our society, other than skating coaches, are interested in cutting this same corner. (By the way, one corner we should not cut is skipping taking off our skates altogether, however tempting. One of my intrepid colleagues put her guards on and drove from one rink to the other wearing her skates. Suffice it to say, this is not something she now recommends.) 

Multitasking is Key: Thanks to the cell phone and of course hands-free technology, my car now serves as an efficient office on wheels. I check my voicemail, schedule lessons, field cancellations then try to reschedule lessons. Lots of coaches I know listen to music for programs while on the road. I’ve found, however, that it’s not a good idea to try and cut programs or choreograph them while driving, unless you’re stopped at a red light.

{I don’t know why this font is smaller!} Most importantly, I have embraced my car as the dining room that it is. I probably eat more meals in mine than I do in my house. I think I’m going to get a chandelier installed just to classy up the joint. Truth be told, the menu at this restaurant is hardly tantalizing. Name a basic finger food, and I’ve noshed on it while racing from one town to another: carrots, apples, grapes, and a whole myriad of nuts. I’ve purchased and devoured every variety of trail mix and nutrition bar sold on the east coast. Even if it’s not decadent, a small repast does nourish me and perks me up for the next round of lessons. In this way, I can convince myself that my mid-shift drive (even if it consists of dreaded bumper to bumper traffic) is not really a “commute,” but, more euphemistically, “snack time.”   

Celebrate the Tax Break: It’s nice that rink to rink mileage is a tax write off, especially in light of current gas prices. I could just celebrate this every April 15, but I choose to watch my odometer all year, as closely as I used to watch the fireplace for Santa’s arrival at Christmas: each time it flips to a new number, I emit a little “woo hoo!” as if I’ve just received a little gift.

While I feel that I’ve made great progress in the above areas, I’m certainly open to any Rink to Rink suggestions you may have. Share your own experiences or observations by clicking on “comment” below. I’ll be posting something new every Tuesday (at least), so check back for further installments.     

Coming up: This Sunday, I will be getting in my car/office/dining room and driving to Stamford, CT, for a PSA Nationwide Seminar. I will report on my revelations HERE. 

Happy travels. And remember, laughter is the best (sports) medicine.