February 2, 2020: Pond Hockey Classic

The 2020 Pond Hockey Classic survived this variable winter, and the action in the rinks was as good as ever.

Some teams are pretty serious.

Note the Giuseppe's Jerseys

They were able to hold the event on Meredith Bay, but it was close - the ice was sound enough to hold 26 rinks worth of hockey, but they kept vehicles and vendors off the ice.  Most importantly, they found a spot for the Labatt's beer tent.  (What would hockey be without beer?)  Even without cars, trucks, fires, and food vendors on the ice, there was plenty of entertainment out there, including hockey players of all sizes.

The feeder team.

Lots of happy faces - it was a much warmer day than most years.

No age or gender rules here.

 The usual assortment of winter vehicles was present, displaying a wide range of transportation methods.

Fat bike - with spikes.

Clearing the ice between games.

Sled dog try-outs.    ;-)

Would someone really ride this on the ice?

Regardless of what mother nature throws at us, Meredith always finds a way to pull off a good event.

Meredith Village is a beautiful spot for events, summer or winter.

The ice on Meredith Bay was reported to be between 8 and 12 inches on Wednesday, probably thicker when the tournament started on Friday after a couple of cold nights.  I checked Lake Wicwas and found 13 inches of ice on Friday, about six inches of black ice with seven inches of solid (not porous) white ice on top - plenty safe for almost any activity on the lake.  There were a lot of snowmobiles out a week ago, but with the trails losing a lot of snow, I saw none this week.

There were people out ice fishing, including this group that built themselves a nice fire to keep warm.

Later in the week I saw they left a fair amount of partially burned wood on the ice.

If this washes up on shore, you'll know where it came from.

Up on the shore I found that the thinning snow cover has allowed the animals to return to digging for acorns.  First squirrels,

Squirrels pulled this out from under the snow.  (Mice would have chewed the shells into smaller pieces.)

and then deer.

Deer were back to digging them up too.

All are happy to be able to access this high calorie food in the depth of winter.  I also found evidence of rabbits, though they don't eat acorns.

Rabbit scat - there were many.

These perfectly round droppings are most likely from a cottontail rabbit rather than a snowshoe hare based on the habitat (the two animals' scat can look very similar).  I found these in dense woods with lots of cover, which is where cottontails like to hide out.  Hares favor more open forest where they can use their speed to elude predators.  [Tracking and the art of Seeing, Rezendes, HarperCollins,1999]

Members of the order lagomorpha, which includes rabbits and hares, digest their food twice, somewhat like ungulates (deer, cows, etc.) but in the rabbit's case the food passes through the entire digestive system twice.  The first time through the scat emerges soft, and is eaten by the rabbit and digested again [ibid].  The scat we find on the ground is the second and final product.

There's snow in the forecast for the coming week, so perhaps we'll get some new snow on the ground to freshen things up for the winter sports enthusiasts as well as the sled dog races coming up in a couple of weeks.  This won't be acceptable for sled dogs:

And don't forget:  next weekend is the Great Meredith Fishing Derby!