When a warm sun threatened Wolfe Island’s annual hockey tournament, the locals left the rink and turned to the lake.

Go ahead. Ask me. What’s it like to win the Lake Ontario Cup? Say again? You’ve never heard of the Lake Ontario Cup?

Truth be told, neither had I — until Wayne Grady mentioned in late January that he and some other writers were heading to a hockey tournament on Wolfe Island. This was the brainchild of islander Mark Mattson, president of the environmental watchdog organization Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Mark’s fellow organizer was Dave Bidini, a Toronto writer best known for Tropic of Hockey — wherein he travels the world looking for pickup games. The aim of the tournament was twofold: have fun and raise money for a new community centre on Wolfe Island.

Last summer, a hundred volunteers (including Don Cherry, who has a place on the island) had donated labour and money for a new rink. They built boards, laid insulation and poured cement, along with installing pipes to ensure ice all winter long. Trouble is, the pipes had yet to be linked to a refrigeration unit.

The day, Saturday, January 28, started out promisingly. No wind, proper cold, welcome sun. At the ferry docks that morning, the scribes arrived: me, then Wayne, then Steven Heighton and Toronto poet Michael Holmes.

We were to play on what Mark had called “an overflow team” — a second band of islanders thrown together for the tournament. We needed a name and it was Steven who came up with The Journeymen. A journeyman is a craftsman not yet a master; in sports, the term describes a grinder — as opposed to a star. Lest there be any confusion.

When we got to the rink, the black shirts (Wolfe Island Rocks) were playing the green shirts (Lake Ontario Waterkeepers, singer Sarah Har mer among them). In the wings were the blue-sweater ed Gas Station Islander team from Toronto, Dave Bidini’s red-sweatered Morningstars and The Journeymen, in yellow broomball sweaters.

Our pre-game warm-up at noon was brief. The ice made a dubious cracking sound as we skated over it, and there were slushy spots. Mark consulted Dave, then Ben Woodman, the ice-keeper; all agreed to delay games until the cold rolled back in. But three hours later, I could still feel the warm sun on my back, and it was decided: The rink was a no-go.

Meanwhile, road hockey had commenced in the parking lot and thought was given to completing the tournament that way. Then someone said, “What about the lake?”

Local fishermen who know the currents suggested a spot by the summer ferry dock. When we got there at 4:30, a truck with a plow had already cleared a rectangular space, Ben had his Zamboni in high gear and men with shovels were shoring up the sides.

And so it was that the 2011 Chris Mattson Memorial Lake Ontario Cup (honouring Mark’s uncle) was played, and rightly so, on the lake itself. Goalies, in gear and too bulky for cars, were conveyed in the beds of trucks, as were nets.

Continue reading the original article by Lawrence Scanlan via Kingston Life.