It was the typical image of a Canadian pastime. Family and friends on an outdoor rink with the sun shining on a cold winter day. Playing the game they love surrounded by trees and mountains.

This was the scene at the Mount Lorne outdoor hockey rink Sunday with the Canyon City Hockey League hosting their Winter Classic.

The second annual event was a day of fun games and skills competition away from the league teams and regular-season games, organizer Jordan Moore said.

Moore, who is also a director on the league board, said the event was such a success in its first year that they instantly decided to host it again.

“It’s just a nice change up from the regular games that we play on a weekly basis,” he said while in control of the barbecue in between events.

Canyon City league players and their families attended the day’s festivities on a perfect weather day with the sun shining on the rink surrounded by nature next to the Lorne Mountain Community Centre.

“The facility here is beautiful,” Moore said. “They got a lot of good things going out here.”

The morning started with a skills competition with two contests – a sharp shooter accuracy competition and hardest shot.

The accuracy competition was held last year as well, Moore said, but the hardest shot was a new addition.

This new contest was a result of the pickup of a radar gun to judge the speed of the shots. Moore said he had a friend he coaches with who bought the radar gun for another purpose originally, but thought it would be a great asset to the event.

“I think his kid was doing a science fair experiment to test how different sticks would influence the speed of a shot and we figured we’d try it out for this,” he said.

David Barrett won the inaugural hardest shot competition with a calculated speed of 126 km/h. After the competition was over, he decided to try and beat that and scored 128 km/h.

For the sharp shooter competition, the league set up four small circular targets on the net corners with the goal of hitting the targets in the shortest amount of time.

And it was Moore who came out the victor in that competition.

Being games just for fun and needing goalies, it was the two skills competition winners who decided to play in net for the afternoon games where the four teams were chosen by placing all the sticks in the middle and having them randomly separated.

The five-team league, which is less than four years old, is heading into the final weeks of the regular season before taking a week off during March Break.

The league playoffs start at the beginning of April and run in a double-elimination bracket format.

With the success of the second event, Moore said the plan will be continuing with the outdoor games.

“As long as people keep turning out and having a good time, we’ll keep it going,” he said.

This may even include an additional outdoor game – as an actual league game.

“I was discussing the possibility of maybe running a Saturday night game one time. I thought that would be pretty fun,” Moore said.

The idea is still in the beginning stages and Moore said they would need to consult with the league players, but the league already has a scheduled game on Saturday nights at the Canada Games Centre.

“On a Saturday night I can’t think of anything much better than coming out to Mount Lorne and playing under the lights,” he said. “If you ever come here at nighttime to play out under the lights you feel like a superstar.”