Column: Ice Skating Hard, Ice Harder

Ice skating is hard. Ice is harder. I was working on the youth hockey/LC Ice Arena story, and Bill Sugden talked me into an unplanned skating lesson while the local 9- and 10-year-old team practiced. Before that, my skating experience was limited to dusty Tanya Harding jokes and flipping past hockey on TV. I should have known there was much more to it than just gliding around when Sugden handed me a helmet. The first step onto the ice isn’t the hard one. It’s the first step away from the rail. Thankfully I had a hockey stick to brace with/ Cody Bloomsburg , Lewiston Tribune. More here .

DFO: One of my favorite photos from my five years in Kalispell, Mont., showed my wife & I on one ice skate each, skating on Foy’s Lake. It was a set up. The ice was mushy. So we simply stood in one spot and pretended to coast across it. At best I could lumber across the ice on skates. No natural born skater here.

Question: Can you ice skate? And/or: Have you ever played hockey?