It’s Anecdotal, But…

For the last few winters, there’s been less hockey in Canada. Facilities near the arctic circle are installing air conditioning and refrigeration.

Leave it to Canadian climate scientists to put the danger in a context their countrymen could appreciate. Shortened skating season. What if: Gretzky’s pond never freezes over, and the Great One plays soccer instead. The next Gretz might be looking at the not-yet-frozen pond in his little town as I type this, thinking maybe he should go shoot hoops instead. Alarmist? IT COULD HAPPEN!

Far from the suburban thermometers that global warming deniers make such a big deal about, it’s been a warm decade way up north, and the trend is accelerating. Ten years is actually a pretty small sample to consider as proof for climate change (you can completely ignore people who say that any one season is proof for or against global warming), and since these indoor facilities weren’t around fifty years ago, there’s no baseline for the sub-arctic indoor ice rink refrigeration metric. But the ponds aren’t freezing as early, either. There’s just not as much ice up there as there used to be.

Will Canadians be as congenial without hockey? Do you want to find out?

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