Hockey players across Canada compete in Montreal Pond Hockey Festival

WATCH ABOVE: Hundreds of people gathered on the shores of Lac Saint-Louis this weekend to celebrate Canada’s favourite pastime – hockey. Rachel Lau reports.

LACHINE – “It’s just beautiful temperature for outdoor pond hockey,” said Philippe Arseneau, the Captain of Team Flintstones. “The real traditional way.”

Hundreds of people gathered on the shores of Lac Saint-Louis this weekend to celebrate Canada’s favourite pastime – hockey.

“There’s a freedom and there’s a lightness to be playing outside and that’s something you can’t duplicate inside,” explained André Lefebvre, the founder of the Montreal Pond Hockey Festival.

“There’s something fun and open and a friendliness.”

Lefebvre says the goal was to bring together some of the city’s biggest outdoor hockey enthusiasts.

“It’s a bit of nostalgia, you know?” he said. “Growing up, we’d scrape the ice on the lake and go skating so I thought it was just a really neat idea.”

Little did he know that four years in, the event would be entertaining athletes from all over the country.

“I have never played pond hockey before so this is a whole new experience for me,” said Alison Coffin, the captain of Team Mother Flockers, who flew in all the way from Newfoundland. “But it’s absolutely very old school and it really kind of gets you back to what the game’s all about.”

The event transforms Lac Saint-Louis into eight outdoor playing rinks and brings together 67 teams of men and women, all of whom are vying for the title of pond hockey champions.

“Every one of us here, we’re about 50 and we all show our age and the kilometres,” said Arseneau. “We’re all aching everywhere. We all know we couldn’t sustain many games with a 35-year-old crowd.”

There were 400 players ranging from teens to grandparents separated into divisions based on age and skill.

Despite their aching backs, Arseneau’s team had an undefeated streak to the finals.

“The game plan was skate less, pass more,” he said. “That’s how we’ve won all our games, basically.”

The event was organized in partnership with the City of Lachine.

Lefebvre says if all goes to plan, the event will keep growing and maybe one day even take over the entire lake.

“We’re here to play, have fun, go on the ice,” he said. “There’s no goalies. Just like the hockey we used to play when we were younger on the outdoor parks.”

For these athletes, skating on a pond in sub zero weather, well, that’s hockey, the way it was meant to be played.