Rink of Dreams lives up to its name for Shooting Stars

Posted Feb 16, 2012 By John Curry

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EMC Sports - Skating on the Rink of Dreams. Awesome. Cavorting on ice with Spartacat, the Ottawa Senators ambassador of fun. Amazing. And doing it on Hockey Day in Canada last Saturday, Feb. 11. Priceless.

This was the experience of the Stittsville Shooting Stars initiation-level hockey team that took to the ice at the Rink of Dreams at Marion Dewar Plaza at Ottawa city hall just before 8 a.m. for an hour-long on-ice session.

A temperature of minus 14 degrees Celsius along with a chilling breeze wafting over the site greeted the black-jerseyed youngsters, their coaches and a number of parents and some siblings as they took to the ice, skating laps around the Rink of Dreams as a set of miniature rink boards were being set up in the centre of the rink. There were warm up exercises, like holding hockey sticks up over the head and then holding them at skate top level. Then players flashed around the oval, first frontwards and then the more challenging backwards way.

Then it was inside the temporary rink in the centre where drills and a "I Love Hockey" game were played.

Time was taken for a group photograph so that all of the parents present could capture this awesome moment on camera. Who knows? On some Hockey Day in Canada in the future, a father may be showing his son via a photograph just what he had experienced at the Rink of Dreams on Feb. 11, 2012.

And as the Rink of Dreams experience continued, the place really lived up to its name as who should appear but Spartacat, the Ottawa Senators mascot, wearing a Sens heritage jersey with the big "O" on the front, his name Sparty emblazoned on the back and skates on his feet.

And, surprise, surprise, Spartacat is good on his skates.

He skated around, exchanging high fives with the players and led them in hijinks on the ice. There was, of course, another group photograph taken, with Sparty right in the middle of the group. Another memory for Hockey Day in Canada 2012.

After an hour on the Rink of Dreams, the Stittsville Shooting Stars had to call it quits but not before giving an enthusiastic stick clap on the ice for Sparty and not before helping Sparty disassemble and move the miniature rink boards to the east end of the ice for removal and storage.

And then it was off to the nearby warm change trailer where the youngsters could warm up while taking off their skates and could begin to think about the great "dream-like" experience that they had just lived on the "Rink of Dreams" on the 12th annual Hockey Day in Canada in 2012.




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