Pond hockey breaks the ice — and builds community in Lincoln Park

Winter boots serve as goal posts. No referees call penalties. No goalies guard the small nets. The teams don’t have names. Sometimes they don’t even keep score.

But make no mistake. The impromptu pickup hockey games at North Pond in the Lincoln Park neighborhood represent Chicago hockey at its finest — in a setting more common in states north of Illinois than in the heart of the city.

“No matter who you are, strangers just kind of come together and pull together a game,” Stephen Nowelski, 25, said. “People are lending each other pucks and setting up nets and helping shovel the ice.”

Some say it’s hockey’s equivalent of playing baseball on a “field of dreams”-type diamond cut out of a cornfield. Many local players covet playing pond hockey so much they are traveling this month to northern Wisconsin for a chance to play on frozen lakes or even in tournaments. The U.S. Pond Hockey Championships are this weekend in Minnesota.

“Being able to play pond hockey in Chicago is amazing for so many reasons, but I really feel like a kid out there,” said Alex Levine, 25. “We’ll stay out on the pond and play for hours at a time, and playing outdoors creates a feeling that just can’t be replicated.”

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Many of the players live in nearby Lake View and have been coming out to North Pond over the last few winters. Madeline Carroll, 28, who lives in Lincoln Park, said she started playing there three years ago. These days, she tries to go out on the pond as often as she can, so long as the ice stays frozen. She said she usually waits for four to five consecutive days of below-freezing temperatures before putting on her skates.

“The nice thing about it is that it makes you enjoy the cold temperature,” she said. “You look forward to below-freezing temperatures, rather than dread it.”

Sometimes, the group is asked to leave by police or park security. While no known city ordinance regulates access to frozen ponds, according to a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department, police officers have general powers to protect residents.

Nowelski said there was “a little bit of contention around ... if we’re actually allowed to be out there, but the local community was very supportive of it. Weeks like this when it’s below freezing, the ice is very safe.”

‘You can just make friends by being out there’

Earlier this week, the sounds of skates scraping the ice and the thud of a puck landing on the stick filled the otherwise quiet air around the pond as Carroll and a friend practiced skating and passing.

The rink is always placed in the shallow end, near land. For extra safety, players check the pond around the edges near land to see if it’s frozen all the way through and slide a rock on the ice to make sure no cracks form. Then, they check for any wet spots.

When snowfall melts and refreezes, the pond’s surface becomes wet, uneven and off limits for a game.

Carroll came to Chicago from Connecticut a couple of years ago to attend Rush University and joined a men’s hockey team after a woman living in one of the apartments overlooking the pond saw her play.

“You start interacting with your neighbors more,” Carroll said. “That’s what’s so fun about it, is that you can just make friends by being out there.”

Mohammad Samra/Sun-Times

One of the pond pals Carroll made was Levine.

Levine said as many as 25 people gathered at the pond one day last winter to play, including a few teenagers several years younger than most others on the pond.

Pond hockey “brings people together,” Levine said. “Even though we were, you know, eight or nine years older than them, it was a lot of fun to get involved with them and talk to them.”

Levine and Carroll both spent most of their lives playing organized hockey and enjoy skating around and practicing on the pond, but those who don’t play competitively also are encouraged to join.

“It’s a lot more carefree, as opposed to a competitive game or a practice for a team where there’s a lot more structure,” said Levine, who plays defense for Team Pharma, a West Loop competitive team.

Nowelski never played hockey competitively, but knows how to skate and has a rough understanding of the sport, which was all he needed, he said.

“There’s people like [Carroll] who like playing hockey and are very good, and there’s people who just barely know how to skate but want to be out there hanging out, and that’s totally fine,” Nowelski said. “Everyone’s totally OK if you’re not that good.”

Carroll said she believes coming out to the pond is an “awesome way to build community in Chicago.”

“Any way we’re able to keep doing this is important, not just to me, but to the entire community,” Carroll said. “I’m really supportive of just trying to continue that and allow access to all people to get out to the pond if they can.”