The beauties and the beasts
In the back of my mind I kind of knew (and I had also seen that in movies) that the ice rink is typically shared by ice skaters and ice hockey players, I only did not know what this entailed before I started to be part of this world myself.
The first thing to say is that all the cliches about figure skaters and ice hockey players are all true! Long haired, slender ballerinas the first (with a few exceptions of course including yours truly), muscled brutes covered with scars the seconds.
Training sessions typically alternate each other, so out with the brutes in with the ballerinas and so on for the whole evening with these two thoroughly opposite crowds crossing each other on the way in and out of the changing rooms, which are adjacent to each other.
The two groups are so distant from one another that the only male representative of the figure skaters community, an easy on the eye twenty something junior trainer working with the less-talented (for the less-talented enjoyment), uses the same changing room as his female fellow figure skaters. I guess he does not dare to go in the other locker room.
I don't blame him though! Thanks to the regular habit of keeping their locker room door wide open, I have seen and smelled enough of "the other side" as to totally understand why a civilized young man would want to avoid such a crowd.
On the ice it is no different soft rhythmic melodies alternate with beastly screams and thumps and very loud bangs.
The contrast is so great that it creates quite an electrifying effect, each of the two groups conscious and proud of its diversity. It is exhilarating!
But of course I should not forget a third group, which is by far the largest in the place where I train, this is the group of the speed skaters. I had almost forgotten all about them reason being, they are boring! The silently skate round and round and round one after the other, women men and children alike almost indistinguishable from one another.
No sound comes from their training ring but the swish of the skates on the ice. Compared to the other two groups they remind me of the quiet normality of real life as opposite to the exciting sparkle of the movies. And as you all know, I prefer the movies!
The first thing to say is that all the cliches about figure skaters and ice hockey players are all true! Long haired, slender ballerinas the first (with a few exceptions of course including yours truly), muscled brutes covered with scars the seconds.
Training sessions typically alternate each other, so out with the brutes in with the ballerinas and so on for the whole evening with these two thoroughly opposite crowds crossing each other on the way in and out of the changing rooms, which are adjacent to each other.
The two groups are so distant from one another that the only male representative of the figure skaters community, an easy on the eye twenty something junior trainer working with the less-talented (for the less-talented enjoyment), uses the same changing room as his female fellow figure skaters. I guess he does not dare to go in the other locker room.
I don't blame him though! Thanks to the regular habit of keeping their locker room door wide open, I have seen and smelled enough of "the other side" as to totally understand why a civilized young man would want to avoid such a crowd.
On the ice it is no different soft rhythmic melodies alternate with beastly screams and thumps and very loud bangs.
The contrast is so great that it creates quite an electrifying effect, each of the two groups conscious and proud of its diversity. It is exhilarating!
But of course I should not forget a third group, which is by far the largest in the place where I train, this is the group of the speed skaters. I had almost forgotten all about them reason being, they are boring! The silently skate round and round and round one after the other, women men and children alike almost indistinguishable from one another.
No sound comes from their training ring but the swish of the skates on the ice. Compared to the other two groups they remind me of the quiet normality of real life as opposite to the exciting sparkle of the movies. And as you all know, I prefer the movies!
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