Deep freeze allows Metro Vancouverites to lace up for pond hockey
Posted January 15, 2024 7:02 am.
Last Updated January 15, 2024 7:03 am.
Metro Vancouver’s frigid temperatures have given way to some ponds and lakes to turn into perfect skating rinks.
There is a latticework of blade marks on Vancouver’s Trout Lake after people took to the ice over the weekend to take advantage of a pretty rare opportunity.
In Coquitlam, plenty of people have taken to the ice at Como Lake despite warnings posted around the lake.
One neighbour, Gary, who’s lived in the area for 35 years, says he would not dare go out on the lake.
“[It’s] sketchy. There are some places where you can walk on it, about a few feet from shore, but I wouldn’t go venturing any farther than a couple of feet out ashore,” he told CityNews. “There’s places where you can see the water still burbling underneath.”
Gary says he’s waiting for the city to give the OK to head out on the ice because it’s thick enough.
“[They’d] drill some holes, have a look to see what they can find. And they check it in a bunch of different places because there’s a few places where it stays thin no matter how cold it gets.”
He explains he needs a few more days of really cold weather to thicken the ice before he steps out.
“Five to 10 days of this kind of weather — minus five, minus 10. Get the ice nice and thick, and wait for the city to come and have a look at it and tell everybody it’s OK.”
But it wasn’t just the lakes that saw thick ice and the blades of skates.
One construction site in East Vancouver that was filled with rainwater before the deep freeze set in turned into a hockey rink for one nearby resident.
Captured on video, a person could be seen skating at the demolition site of a former London Drugs store on East Hastings Street near Penticton Street.
It comes after Metro Vancouver and much of B.C. has shivered through an arctic outflow which saw temperatures with windchill dive into the -20Cs.
CityNews Meteorologist Michael Kuss says new records, though not official, were set in several areas around B.C., including the Lower Mainland.
“At YVR, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford, Agassiz, Vancouver Island, around the capital region and central island too, as morning lows were between -11°C and -16°C, even along the coast,” he said Friday. “Inland, on the other side of the coast range, we’re talking about -30s and below.”
