Ranee Field.

Some of my childhood memories playing the most wonderful game.

Ranee Field was about half a mile away from my apartment in Lawrence Heights. It was located on a street called Ranee Avenue which ran east west between Dufferin and Bathurst Streets just south of the Yorkdale Shopping Mall. A short five minute walk east from Dufferin Street on the north side was where a small neighborhood park transformed itself into a hockey paradise every winter back when I was a kid.

Ranee Field would get an annual visit from city workers who installed old wooden boards into a rectangle shape usually at the beginning of each November. Then when the temperature got cold enough constant nightly flooding would begin until the ice was thick enough and ready for skating on.

Every year overeager skaters would skate on the ice before it was ready. They would chop up the thin layer that had already frozen into thousands of jagged ice fragments and the nightly flooding process would have to be repeated all over again.

Then eventually it happened.

The rink was finally ready and like a magnet it would attract both kids and adults every day and evening. Some of the kids would be out there just learning how to skate while others myself included were determined to someday become a professional hockey player. 

I will never forget the 'twangy' sound of the puck hitting those old rotting wooden boards or the buildup of snow that seemed to always coat the ice when there were too many skaters. Somebody would always bring a snow shovel and every hour or so the snow was pushed to the sides then up and over the three foot high boards. The corners were square and the snow always accumulated the most in those four spots.

At night the city workers returned, the rink would get cleaned, flooded and ready for the next day. On most days we would all get along and we would organize ourselves into two teams. Four winter boots would be stood upright for our goal posts if nobody brought real mesh nets. The width between the boots was usually the length of a hockey stick and I don't think the goals were ever the same width.

The later it got the fewer kids remained. Eventually, I too would also have to quit because my feet and hands would be frozen and numb. My winter boots/goal posts would be filled with snow and I would walk home totally exhausted from hours of skating and breathing in the cold fresh winter air. My two sizes too small hand me down skates would be slung over my stick resting on my shoulder.

There were two rules that I remember most while playing at Ranee Field. One, when you fall brush the snow quickly off your pants. And two, do not ever raise the puck. I learned that rule very early when I was about ten years old after I hit a much older and bigger kid on the shin with a wrist shot. The way he was carrying on you would have thought I had broken his leg. After he speared me with his stick, he then kicked me with his skates and he warned me never to come back otherwise he promised he would knock out my teeth.

I went back many more times and thankfully I never lost any teeth at Ranee Field.

Ranee Field was like a thousand neighborhood parks in Canada that would have kids playing ice hockey outdoors during the cold winter months. At the first signs of spring, small puddles of water would begin to appear and eventually the workers would stop flooding at night. The rink would quickly give way to grass patches sprouting up from under the melting ice due to the warm spring sun. Finally the city workers would return and remove the old wooden boards and my hockey paradise would disappear until the next winter. I don’t think I ever went to Ranee Field when there was no ice rink.

They do not build the rink at Ranee Field anymore and it is now known as Ranee Park. However, there is still one thing that remains from those good old days well over fifty years ago. A single street light high atop a wooden pole was like a beacon, a lighthouse and Ranee Field was our safe harbour.

Whenever I return to the area I will always take a drive along Ranee Avenue. I can't help but think of all those frigid cold winter days and nights when the snow would be gently falling. I would be out there always trying to be the best hockey player on the ice. My snow covered pants were always wet, my feet and hands would always be numb while skating all over the rink always trying to remember not to raise the puck.

Again.