Читать книгу Let It Snow. Keeping Canada's Winter Sports Alive онлайн

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It’s quite possible, however, that Vancouver’s hosting of the 2010 Winter Olympics will mark the last time the Games will ever be held in Canada. Assuming Canada is called upon in twenty to twenty-four years from now (the period between the Games in Calgary in 1988 and those in 2010 was twenty-two years because the Games began a new four-year cycle in 1994, two years after those in 1992, in order that they not be held the same year as the Summer Games), winter may be a fading memory, or the cost of moving all events indoors may make them financially prohibitive. We can’t forget that hockey, figure skating, and speed skating were all once played on outdoor surfaces.

It isn’t that one can’t build an indoor facility for ski jumping or any number of outdoor sports. The better question is why one would want to other than as a fading memory of a once noble time of year?

In these pages we embark upon a voyage of both remembrance and caution. Looking back at the conditions that instilled feverish excitement at the first glimpse of a snowflake in the darkening days of late fall, and forward to the unusual world of melting ice caps, unpredictable weather, and assaults on Canada’s backyard ice rink culture.