He was right. From outside the fence, we caught glimpses of cracked asphalt through the undergrowth, but standing at ice level, the full scope of the place revealed itself. It was a regulation-sized surface that stretched away toward boards thick with moss and saplings rooted in the goal creases.
I'd expected worse. Decades of New England weather should have reduced the rink to rubble and twisted metal. Instead, the bones remained intact. Solid.
Eric set down his tool bag and walked a slow circle around the perimeter, taking pictures with the Polaroid camera he carried everywhere. I watched him frame shots where overgrown plants created almost artistic patterns.
He crouched to examine where the boards met the asphalt. "The construction standards are impressive. Look at these footings. They went deep."
We approached the task of clearing differently. Eric attacked the obvious problems—pulling down vines that obscured the boards while raking back years of accumulated leaf litter from the corners where drainage had failed. He was methodical and systematic.
I focused on minor repairs. A section of the fence had come loose from its posts, and the boards had warped enough to create gaps where debris had collected. They were problems that bothered me more than they would others.
"Hand me that rope," I called to Eric. He tossed me the coil, which I used to lash the loose fence section back into alignment. The work was familiar—not from this specific place, but from years of maintaining things that wanted to fall apart.
His gaze lingered while I secured the knot. "You've done this before."
"Maintenance is maintenance." I tested the fence section's stability with my shoulder. It was solid enough to last another winter. "It doesn't matter if it's a dock or a hockey rink. Same principles apply."
We worked for an hour without much conversation beyond practical coordination. While we passed tools and performed wordless coordination of who would tackle which section, we stumbled into the kind of intimacy that takes most people years to build.
Our bodies learned to anticipate each other's movements—when Eric needed the rake, and I would shift left to give him room. We developed a vocabulary of grunts and gestures that were more honest than any word-infused conversation we'd had.
Eric's technique improved as he worked. He learned to read which vines would pull free easily and which needed cutting at the root. He stopped trying to rush the process and started paying attention to what each plant was doing and how it attached itself to the structure beneath.
"Eric." I called him to where I'd been clearing debris along the far boards. "Look at this."
Half-submerged beneath decades of moss and fallen leaves, the curved end of what had clearly been a player's bench emerged like the prow of a buried ship. The wood was weathered gray but intact.
Eric knelt beside me, running his fingers along the exposed edge. "Someone put serious craftsmanship into this."
Together, we began the careful work of excavation. I used the rake to scrape away larger debris while Eric worked with his hands, feeling around the buried sections to understand the bench's full dimensions.
When we finally freed the entire piece, it was more substantial than we had expected. Eight feet long, designed to seat maybe six players, with armrests at both ends that showed evidence of careful sanding and finishing.
"Look at the joinery." Eric traced one of the corner connections with his thumb. "No nails or screws. Everything fitted together with wood joints."
I studied Eric's hands as he examined the craftsmanship. When he looked up and caught me watching, I turned my attention back to the bench.
"Help me move it," I said. "We'll set it back where it belongs."
Working together, we carried the bench to its original position along the boards. It was heavier than it looked, and we had to coordinate our movements to avoid dropping it on the uneven surface.
For his next task, Eric moved to the far end of the rink, where goldenrod had grown thick around the base of one goalpost. The yellow flowers nodded in the breeze.
"Hey, Wes. There's something buried over here."
He crouched near the goal line, pulling at something hidden beneath the thick stems. His movements were careful like he feared damaging whatever he'd found.
"Probably just debris from the storms." Despite my dismissal, I walked toward him.
Eric managed to free his find with a wet sucking sound as the earth released its grip. He held it up, grinning with the satisfaction of a successful excavation.
As I watched, I gasped.
A hockey stick. A relic from before manufacturers started chasing the perfect flex point. It had a blade cracked along the grain, and years of moisture and decay had darkened its shaft.
The tape around the handle had rotted away to gray threads, but I saw the ghost pattern underneath—the precise spiral wrap I'd learned from watching NHL games on fuzzy television broadcasts. The blade's curve was wrong for contemporary standards, too dramatic. It was how they'd manufactured them in the eighties and early nineties.
"Can you believe this?" Eric turned the stick over in his hands, examining it like an artifact. "Must have been here for years. Decades, maybe."
