The oval of my ire

Following up my last blog post where I defended cynicism and criticized innovation, it seems I'm now going to attack a beloved project that has united all of Halifax, and argue for more bureaucratic red tape.

Sigh. Let's get this over with.

The way thing's are going, Halifax will have a new permanent skating oval on the central Common. People are going crazy for it, and our politicians aren't exactly bandwagon-adverse, so it's got good odds.

And there are some great reasons to have an oval (for a summary, see this Tim Bousquet editorial in The Coast.) But some huge questions haven't been resolved.

Say you're tripping out one weekend and decide to build a big fort in your living room. It turns out you love the fort and want to keep it. But alas, it means you can't really have guests over and it's impossible to see the TV or water the fern. Once the high wore off, most rational, fort-building people would consider moving it to another room where it would be less disruptive.

The oval, meant to be temporary for the Canada Games and placed with no long-term considerations whatsoever, is our acid fort.

The oval debate is wholly centered around the question of whether to keep it or not. Instead we should be asking two distinct questions: 1) should we have a permanent outdoor oval, and 2) if yes, should it stay where it is now.

Now, I'm as much of a fan as ice-skate NASCAR as the next guy, so I have no problem with question 1. My problem with question 2 is that all of the great things about the present location - it's central, it's a big park, etc. - are also downsides.

That's because for the big majority of the year where we don't have cold enough weather it'll just be wased space. A fifth of our signature park is just gone.

(I should note that some people have climbed out of their drug forts to say it could just be turned into a giant inline skating rink. Are we going to invite the 1980s? Because I don't really know anyone else who inline skates. And even if they did, we'd never normally shove the baseballers, cricketers, soccerers, frisbeers and and dog-walkers to make room for something like inline skating.)

Christ, is this really who I am now? Can I not just let people be happy? Everone loves that damn ice circle. You know, I was such a nice kid. Now look at me. I'm in my mid-20s and I've got the temperament of a 77-year-old Korean war vet.

If you google image search 'oval' you get a bunch of drawings of ovals plus this rando.

OK, gotta get through this. What about putting an oval on the Wanderers Grounds, the Garrison Grounds by Citadel Hill, or potentially even behind the new Halifax Library?

They all offer that same rush - outdoors in the heart of the city - arguably without costing such prime land. And sure, there are downsides to each, and maybe the oval wouldn't fit in any of those spots. Maybe we don't go for a full-sized oval. Maybe we have a small one somewhere central, even the common, and put a long-track in Dartmouth or wherever.

The argument has become baseball vs. skating, the Common as sacred land vs. doing something fun. But maybe we could have all of these things. Maybe we can have a great oval near downtown and preserve the Common. Maybe not. Maybe it's not feasible or is too expensive.

But why the hell wouldn't we be frantically studying to answer these questions? That's just due diligence.

Imagine if the city put a huge permanent structure on the Common with no studying or consultation. Some poor bureaucrat would be publicly crucified. But that's essentially what it now appears is going to happen.

And also, seal hunt protestors need to grow up and find a real cause! And stop freaking out about someone changing Mark Twain's words, it's not like he burned all the original copies! And Natalie Portman was only ok in Black Swan!

Jesus, how did it come to this? Well, be sure to check back next week when I'll presumably be bashing world peace and giving an impassioned defence of polio.