Canadians do u still play hockey outdoors ?

Environment Canada has the history of daily high and low temps going back up to 1840 in major centres and 60, 70 and 80 years in not so major areas.

You can access them easily and use drop down menus to see a specific city's temperature on a specific day in the past, even each hour.

For "fun" I have done a bit of this and find that the temperatures were not colder for longer periods "back in the day", but the trends were cyclical. There were periods of warmer temps and periods of cooler temps, just like now.

I think we get all caught up in the rhetoric and our romantic version of the past. This year in December and 2012 in December - I think the 18th, Edmonton for example set cold temperature records. Not by much, like it wasn't freak, but cold...for that one day, wasn't even close to -40. I think -28 or something.

You often hear people say, "well when I was young we were out in the 40 below....".

Nope. Skin freezes in minutes. I have worked in it, and those temps cause warnings about going outside. They are not rare but not "everyday life" as people make it out to be...next time a Torontonian tries to tell you they are used to "40 below" weather, all winter, go look up at Environment Canada. I bet it is so rare for 40 below that generations never have had it there. In fact in the previous 30 years, the record in that time for extreme temp drop in Toronto, was one day at -32. Oh sure the wind chill will bring that down, but for straight up temp that was it.

Edmonton will get single days at -40, in fact they hold a few records:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_temperatures_in_Canada

Yes, I live in Ottawa and every neighborhood has an ODR (outdoor hockey rink). You can find kids out there at all hours of the day and night playing hockey.

Are there places for non hockey folks who want to skate ?

RCS- I am in Old Ottawa South. On Cameron Ave. There is an autistic guy down the street who floods and maintains "Oak Leaf Gardens" all winter long. He doesn't come out in the day much, if ever, but will often be out in the dark of night flooding the rink. It is a spectacular specimen of an outdoor rink on a half-acre lot. Worth visiting if you are ever in the neighbourhood. It is open to all.

As a bonus, the rink caretaker looks like the bearded guy from the Hangover.

Well depends on the city you are in. For example, Ottawa's Rideau canal is a skating highway, people skate to work and stuff....

In Vancouver you need a kayak.

Are you serious ? you can skate to work ?

Yes. Don't forget your shoes, unless you work ON the canal. Like if you are a BeaverTail sales rep or an ice-fisher or security.

Well I do

Talking about hockey equipment, where do you usually buy it? Any reviews on
HockeyMonkey may be? Everything I found online is this info
https://www.pissedconsumer.com/company/hockeymonkey/customer-service.html , these are the contacts of this company and some customer reviews.

I live in downtown Toronto - there is a pond 200 metres from my house where we play shinny, and three city owned, chilled outdoor sinks within a 15 minute drive - so yeah, we sure do.

I did a lot of research on this. In the GTA, it isn't that the average temperature has gone up much, it's that the number of days above zero has increased in the last 20 years. So in the 70's when I grew up, you could flood a rink and it lasted most of the winter. Now you flood a rink and you basically have to rebuild it every few weeks because it goes through almost constant freeze thaw cycles.

North of Toronto in Ontario and all of Quebec. I’ve been to Ottawa in the winter. They have many outdoor rinks. I recall seeing the trucker protesters playing street hockey in front of their capital building.