The winter Olympics begin in Italy next week, which means it’s almost time for me to critique the incredible strength and humbling talent of athletes while I sit on the couch covered in toast crumbs, stumbling over the cat on the way to the bathroom during the ad breaks. Figure skating will be my discipline of choice and, just as I become a gymnastics and diving expert during the summer Olympic Games, I will be reviving my knowledge of toe jumps and combination spins and delivering a muttered commentary about how that triple axel into a double salchow could have been neater, but doesn’t he have beautiful artistry in the arms?
There was once a time when I fancied myself an Olympic figure skater. I was 11. I was something of a whizz on roller skates thanks to a 25-foot driveway with only a few potholes and the relatively isolated childhood of a rural tween. My signature move was a kind of screeching stop, something akin to a handbrake turn. It certainly was nowhere near as impressive as I imagined.
It was incredibly popular at the time for girls of my age to celebrate birthdays by going up to the ice rink in Dolphin’s Barn. I lived for these outings. My roller-skating prowess meant that I was something of a prodigy on the ice, and by “prodigy” I mean I could mostly stay standing and didn’t have to cling on to the edges.
Obviously, I felt the siren call of Mount Olympus every time I placed those hostile rental skates and their inevitable blisters on my feet. Alas both the Dolphin’s Barn rink and Silver Skate in Phibsboro didn’t last into the new millennium, and with them went my dreams of gold. Despite continuing to rent the classic 1992 ice skating romance film The Cutting Edge at least once a month throughout my teens I hung up my roller skates and turned my back on a life of flesh-coloured tights and hair gel.
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Among my many, many deranged pandemic lockdown purchases was a pair of adult roller skates. I was convinced it was all going to come flooding back to me. What a fun way to exercise! What a wholesome activity! What a deluded fool!
I tried them on once, almost met my maker on the tiles in the kitchen, and they’ve been on top of a wardrobe ever since. I’ve since done away with most of my lockdown impulse buys – the Shakti mat, the watercolour paints, the sourdough bread-baking equipment – but I can’t bear to part with the skates because there is a part of me that’s convinced that I will someday return to my roller and blade glory.
Enter: Heated Rivalry. The queer Canadian ice hockey show has had a profound effect on me in several ways. Of course, the beautiful story and the chemistry and charisma of the main characters have captured my heart like nothing else in recent years, but I’ve also felt drawn back to the ice.
Okay, so I haven’t placed a pair of ice skates on my feet in 15 years and am at an age now where having A Fall is a real concern. I would genuinely worry about my potentially osteoporotic bones and my ability to get back up once I inevitably hit the deck. Nonetheless I took to Google just in case an incredible ice rink has been established in the Greater Dublin Area and I just didn’t notice. Alas, no. There are the seasonal Christmas offerings but the prospect of going down like a sack of potatoes and taking four children in Santa jumpers with me doesn’t bear thinking about.
Ireland’s only permanent public rink is in Belfast. There is talk of a large facility coming to Cherrywood in Dublin and, in the meantime, I suppose I could get back into the roller skates and see if I can make it out of the apartment on them. By the time Cherrywood is operational I could be one of those doses showing off my spins in the centre of the ice.
If anything’s going to motivate me it’s going to be the winter Olympics. I’ll be glued to the skating and obviously will be armchair experting through the curling. I’ve been very taken with the slalom skiing in the past, and despite learning absolutely nothing about ice hockey from Heated Rivalry I might just throw my support behind Team Canada. God, I love being a sportswoman.
