WHERE IS YOUR HOME OVAL?

At our first international masters speed skating games in Ste-Foy in 2001, our new-found Dutch friends asked us, "Where is your home oval?". As residents of long-track deprived southwestern Ontario - we had to admit, to their surprise, that we had no oval - only the never-ending corners of short-track.

We're very envious of our long-track colleagues in Calgary, Ste-Foy, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City and areas of Europe who get out to their local oval 2 to 4 times per week. Our actual long track practice sessions are limited, by time and money, to usually no more than 4 to 6 trips per year. From where we are, driving times to the closest ovals are Lake Placid (7 hours), Ste-Foy (9 hours) and Milwaukee (10 to 11 hours depending on Chicago traffic conditions). A trip to Calgary involves a week away from work.

But if this sounds like whining, we're not totally deprived and often tell our skating friends that our home oval is the world famous Tri-Oval in Brampton Ontario. Located in Gage Park just behind City Hall near Hurontario (Hwy 10), this venue is really not an oval at all - but rather a recreational skating path. The name derives from the path's approximate 250 m configuration which is roughly made up of 3 corners and 3 straightaways - one of which is bent enough to necessitate a mid-stride cross-over. For skaters of our modest caliber, the track is navigable on long track skates at moderately high speed - although Turn 3 often takes one to the brink of sparking across the adjacent brick paving and local legend says at least one skater has crashed into the concrete fountain beside Turn 1.













Gage Park is open to the public all the time and so we go at 7 am on weekends to avoid the crowds. As the first flood is not until 8 am, our standard warm-up includes laps in both directions pushing our own snow shovels to remove the debris left behind by hundreds of skaters who partied well past midnight on the previous evening. Although this generally consists of snow and coffee cup lids, our shovels have been known to collect broken glass and discarded double-A batteries - known enemies of the lovingly hand-sharpened blade. The local squirrels who inhabit the branches overhanging the track also contribute leafs, branches and acorns to this high-performance ice surface. Our favourite, however, is the nightly visits by security guards who actually drive their patrol car on the ice leaving behind behind tire tracks of salt and sand. To them, we are indebted for our well-practiced sharpening skills. Standard post-practice protocol includes washing the salt from your blades and guards.

I'm reminded of this, as Gage Park opened for the season this week and we were there this morning at 6:45 am suiting up in our portable 4-wheeled change rooms in the nearby parking lot. Conditions with a wind-chill of only -11C were not too bad with a full set of underwear covered by a hooded skin-suit, toque, jersey, double-mittens and skater covers with toe warmers. Track-side water bottles need to be turned upside down to keep the freezing water flowing out the spout. Friends Larry (Masters 40-44 pictured below in Turn 3) and Julius (master in another 12 years) joined in this morning's workout which still made us sweat despite the chilly temperature.













One additional bit of trivia about the Gage Park Tri-Oval is that it was used as a set to mimic Madison Wisconsin in the 1996 film - A Brother’s Promise – The Dan Jansen Story

I know we're not the only covered oval-deprived skate fanatics out there and often wonder what it's like outdoors in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, northern Alberta, British Columbia and parts of the USA where conditions are likely to make Gage Park seem like a tropical paradise. MSS News would like to hear about your Home Oval. Click on comments (below), select "Other" as your identity, enter your name and tell your story. All clean, politically-correct, censor board-approved submissions will be posted. Or even better, e-mail us your story and a photo for posting on this site.

When you read these stories, you know you have to love this sport to do it!