On joy, happiness, and a sheet of ice in the middle of the Pacific

I had a four-hour layover in Honolulu, so like any sane person I did the first thing I could think of in Hawaii -- I went ice skating.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN¹ — Fair warning: from a hockey perspective this one is coming a bit off the beaten path.

I spent the majority of the past week exploring the Island of Hawaii, better known as the Big Island, with my wife Christina.

We watched a simmering active volcano, Kīlauea. Hiked across a dormant volcano, the Kīlauea Iki Crater which last erupted in 1959. Went stargazing on Mauna Loa. Hiked to one of just four green sand beaches in the world. Came across wild sea turtles, whales, and manta rays.

It was a fun, adventurous trip, which we intentionally scheduled to align with the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off break².

And because I’m a bit of a nutcase and Christina is extremely supportive, I went out of my way to add a different type of Hawaiian adventure on Saturday.

I went ice skating during our four-hour layover in Honolulu.

Yes, I went ice skating in Hawaii.

For a some quick background, there is one ice rink in Hawaii. The Ice Palace³ was built in 1982 and happens to be a 12-minute Uber ride from the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu.

With roughly four hours between flights we left the airport, called the Uber, and went to the rink. Our Uber driver, a woman likely in her late 40s, not only knew about the rink, but had her own stories of taking her now-grown children to skate at the Ice Palace. It was a place to cool down, she said, a place where people could get together on the ice.

And, honestly, she undersold it.

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I knew the Ice Palace had an ongoing open skating session, one that lasted from 11 am to 4 pm, a full five-hour block, and I expected to see a smattering of skaters.

Tucked in the back of an outdoor shopping center, behind a Jack in the Box and a martial arts studio, the Ice Palace marquee greeted everyone to “skate your heart out,” and after paying the $18 entry fee, which included the skate rental, I came across the best-attended public skate I’ve ever seen⁴, there were at least hundred skaters on the ice, about a third of them in the roped-off beginners area.

Like most ice rinks, it the Ice Palace is bit of a time capsule to when it was built. You’ll notice that unless a professional team plays out of the facility, ice rinks are a typically a patchwork of improvements, a new paint of coat, maybe, to spruce it up to bring it into the 1990s.

But the soul of the building, the heart of a rink, it’s something special.

It didn’t matter that we were on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Where there’s a sheet of ice and a pair of skates, anyone can feel like they’re flying⁵.

kssh, kssh, kssh

In fact, one of USA Speed Skating’s top coaches, Ryan Shimabukuro, discovered that joy at this very rink. A native of Honolulu, Shimabukuro, started skating at the Ice Palace in the 1980s, eventually saved up money from his paper route to buy a pair of hockey skates and took a speed skating class.

Sure, Shimabukuro had to leave Hawaii to pursue a career in speed skating⁶, but it all started in Honolulu and there is a large photo of Shimabukuro on the arena wall close to where skaters enter, serving as a reminder of how a simple open skate, for some, can turn into a life-long passion on ice.

One of the things I think about way more now, especially since I became a parent six years ago, is how much joy exists in the world. How it’s infectious and radiates, how someone next to you might be having the time of their life, and you can’t help but smile and feel the residual happiness.

I felt that in the Ice Palace. Whether it was the newer skater who all of a sudden found confidence, maybe pushing a bit further away from the wall, or the group of teenagers that gathered around center ice chatting until Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!” blasted over the PA system and neon lights and a disco ball started illuminating the rink, prompting a dance party on skates.

Happiness is a beautiful thing, and I find it really cool that in the middle of the Pacific Ocean an ice rink can contribute to that.

I guess I should somehow connect this back to hockey, right?

The Ice Palace has hockey leagues, the local beer leagues have about 160 players according to the woman behind the desk at the pro shop and there is a youth hockey program with about 120 players right now.

One of the skate shop attendants, who grabbed me a pair of rental Riedell’s, told me he played in the B division and played wing because he was too lazy to play defense — turns out the beer league goalies in Hawaii deal with same issues I’ve dealt with in Michigan⁷ when it comes to forwards not back checking.

It’s something I thought about while taking strides around the ice for about 20 minutes — I think I was the only person skating in shorts — about how it didn’t matter where or why someone bought into this idea in Hawaii. But like any good rink the Ice Palace has a weekly pilgrimage point where the games matter, but the camaraderie and post-game beers typically matter more.

You think about it and you can’t help but smile, not just about the hockey element, but how a frozen sheet of water can somehow connect on so many levels, even when that frozen sheet is tucked into a shopping center in the middle of the Pacific.

1. I don’t always use datelines at Shap Shots, but that’s one of the coolest possible datelines and couldn’t help myself.

2. Yes, technically NHL games started back up Saturday, but you’ll have cut me some slack. They’ll be lots more NHL coverage starting this week at this site.

3. The Ice Palace also happens to be the name of the rink in Charleston, South Carolina where The Late Game was filmed. And I know I promote it often, but if you haven’t you can watch the beer league hockey movie I’m in now for free on multiple platforms here.

4. And I’ve seen lots of public skates. My typical week now includes at least three trips to a local rink in Michigan for youth skating and hockey-related activities.

5. It’s why we build an outdoor rink in our backyard each winter, the kssh kssh sound of skates in nature, the joy watching my kids twirl around without any curfew, other than frozen toes, to pull them off the frozen water.

6. In 2022 he signed a contract extension with USA Speed Skating to keep coaching through the 2026 Olympics.

7. On a quick side note, before anyone from the my beer league team takes offense to this… I will say the Anchormen are one of the best defensively-structured teams you’ll find in the beer league universe.