In 1936, John H Harris, a Pittsburgh rink owner, hired the legendary skater Sonja Henie to perform between periods of ice hockey games. When he and other rink owners noticed the swelling crowds, they created an ice carnival that would entertain crowds in rinks across America. The Ice Capades were born.
The competing pulls of professional figure skating on the one hand and the emergence of Disney on Ice on the other hand, led to the Ice Capades ending their run in 1995. A couple revival attempts in 2000 and 2008 failed. And so all was done...until 2021.
The Hass Avocado Jnrs realised that while audiences were done with vaudevillian skating routines, they weren't done with fun and japes in the cold. So introducing the thoroughly modern Ice Capades for the 21st century!!!
Act I: There's snow place like home
The crowd are on their feet, the applause is deafening. Can this show get any better?
ACT II: Be careful, that's a slippery slope you're going down
The audience is crying with laugher. Never have they seen such antics! A chant has started, "More, more, more!"
ACT III: Going skating at night was a snow brainer
What a show! What a performance! From young to old, the audience are leaving the auditorium wanting more. The Avocado Juniors are busy preparing for the next big concert. But wait, the organisers want a word with Pater. Something about needing to clean up first...
There are three known types of avocados, named for their places of origin: Mexican avocados (Persea americana var. drymifolia), West Indian (Persea americana var. americana) and Guatemalan avocados (Persea nubigena var. guatemalensis). Of the three, Mexican avocados are the most hardy and can survive temperatures down to -4 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit).
However, less well known is the very rare Canadian-American-English-South African-Hungarian-Polish-Israeli avocado (Persea confuseda var. hass) that can survive in climates as low as -10 degrees Celsius (and -15 when the crazy Canadian wind chill factor is taken into consideration). Some have even claimed (though obviously not Pater and Mater) that it will particularly flourish when brought into contact with snow.
So you can imagine our chagrin (and amazement - THIS IS CANADA PEOPLE!) when we reached mid-February and no major snow had fallen to allow you Avocado Juniors to flourish. No snow balls. No snow men. No snow to eat (yellow or otherwise - AJ3 J'accuse!).
This was particularly galling since AJ4 was finally ready to sit up and enjoy the snow, having made the move from this...
...with the help of this...
...to this...
But did Mater and Pater throw our hands up in the air in despair, and resign you to a winter spent indoors? Well kinda...
And then Pater had an epiphany - while holding some cutlery and taking ice cubes out of the freezer - who needs snow to enjoy the winter? Why not tie knives to your boots and you can run around on the ice? And so it was said, and so it was done...
Ice is nice, but it's no snow, the Avocado Juniors wailed in quasi-haiku. Then, said Pater, we will need to turn to a tradition from time immemorial and offer a sacrifice to the gods of winter. And no, not AJ3 (we want snow, not a blizzard). How about something white and pure? asked AJ1 with a smile...
Nope, not getting it, said Pater. How about now? asked AJ1...
At this point Pater passed out from the grossness of AJ1's first wiggly tooth. Which was actually a blessing because when he awoke, Pater discovered that AJ1 had (literally) pulled out said wiggly tooth, resulting in this...
...and this (courtesy of the Tooth Fairy who in future will be leaving only a $2 coin for AJ1's other 19 teeth)...
...and, FINALLY, this!!!!
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