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While the chill of recent weeks has driven many Northwest Corner residents inside and their energy bills up, others have taken advantage of the extended cold by practicing some of our region’s most treasured — and increasingly rare — pastimes: ice sports.

I am one of those who goes out rather than in when the mercury drops: a one-time Peewee and Bantam league hockey player turned pond hockey enthusiast turned general ice lover. In the winter, my 12 year-old hockey skates never leave my trunk, on the chance I’ll pass some gleaming stretch of black ice on a roadside pond.