On BLIZZARD's 20th Anniversary, I reflect on how my life has changed
by Katharine Mussellam, Staff Writer
A couple of years ago, at a Christmas gathering for an organization for which I was volunteering, we played a game of Twenty Questions. We took turns having the others guess a Christmas movie character. I came up with what I thought was a challenging but a good one: the titular character from the film Blizzard (dir. LeVar Burton, 2003), an old favourite. I made the fatal mistake of saying that it was a film from the past ten years, which it very much is not. It prompted me to revisit the film that year, and the shock of time passing hit me in a few different ways.
I loved the film as a kid, with its story of friendship and the many skating scenes, since I’ve always loved to skate even if I wasn’t ever a figure skater like the protagonist, Katie. I loved the story of this lonely girl who finds unlikely friendships, first with Blizzard–one of Santa’s reindeer–and then with a fellow skater, Erin, who initially doesn’t like her. At the time of its release, watching it with my mom in the theatre, I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t gotten a very good review in the paper. I lapped it all up, which continued during my repeat viewings at home–the subplot of Blizzard’s mean reindeer peers was no more than an annoyance.
Revisiting the film as an adult, the urge to skip the North Pole scenes is strong. I don’t understand the inclusion of the stale, cheesy, juvenile humour uttered by the reindeer characters in what is otherwise a sweet coming-of-age story. These obnoxious scenes cannot be completely saved even by Kevin Pollack as Archimedes and Christopher Plummer as Santa Claus, though they aren’t bad in their roles, just not always given the best lines to work with. It’s no wonder they didn’t remain in my memory.
But there is still something in the rest of the movie that is special to me. As an adult, I’ve had a lot more experiences of losing or being separated from friends, as well as finding friends where I haven’t expected to, and those are aspects that only feel more real and resonant now. While I want to treasure my friends, I also enjoy the reminder of their importance, a story celebrating friendships even when times are tough.
The film has also preserved a real-life place that, for now, I cannot visit or experience the way I once did. Many of the skating scenes were filmed at Cedarena, an old outdoor natural ice rink near where I live. They always had old music playing while people skated, and there was a wood cabin where you put on your skates and could get a cup of hot cocoa. The lights up at night, the music, and the rink’s position at the bottom of a hill amongst the trees gave it a magical atmosphere unlike any other ice rink. I wish I could go back, but in recent years the weather has not been consistently cold enough for the place to open, the one downside to natural ice. Even though I skated there in the 21st Century–not the 1940s–this movie is a time capsule for Cedarena, the only way I can currently visit it. And everything I remember and liked about it is all there. Katie walks down the hill through the wood cabin; the camera moves from one of the old, green speakers playing music to Katie as she steps onto the ice. I only went to Cedarena a few times, but it left a lasting impression on me. I enjoy revisiting that place alongside this favourite film character of my childhood. I wept when I found out it was no longer open or maintained, and I hope a recent effort to re-open it is successful, but for now it is only a memory.
While I still skate elsewhere, the tradition of skating itself, like a Christmas tradition or revisiting a film, is a reminder of what I have lost. My mom and I both enjoyed Blizzard the first few Christmases after it was released, and since I was a little kid, we have enjoyed skating together, including at Cedarena. But because of the progression of her cancer and the effects of years of treatment on her, she is unable to skate with me anymore. The duet of Katie skating as Blizzard floats acrobatically around her is tinged with bittersweetness since their story is told in flashback. While watching I feel a similar sense of what I am seeing being something that I will never have again. But I am glad to have those memories and this film to remember them by.
Traditions exist in a way for both the present moment and the future, as we celebrate the current holiday while thinking about holidays past, knowing that the holiday we are currently celebrating will soon be a memory recalled on the next. Like so many Christmas traditions and films, Blizzard reminds me of what has remained the same as well as what has changed over the years, whether that’s what I can enjoy in a film or bigger things in my life. It’s still hard to believe things from my childhood are from 20 years ago (or more), but while things are different, holding onto memories of the past is an important part of life. As Aunt Millie says partway through her retelling of Katie’s story to Jess, every story has sad parts and they are important to what makes the good parts of a story so good. It’s okay to feel sad and miss the past, and one of her lines from the film has always stayed with me from the beginning: “Don’t be afraid of your feelings. They let you know you’re alive.”