Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Steve McNeil threw his arms in the air and did a 360 in the centre of Kingston’s Spring Market Square ice pad at 7:26 p.m. on Saturday, celebrating the completion of his 19 hour, 26 minute marathon skate.
Saturday marked the 28th time McNeil has performed the feat, each time doing so to raise funds and awareness for the local Alzheimer Society. This time around it was to benefit the Alzheimer Society of KFLA. With money still being tabulated, a very early count showed he raised over $4,000 for the KFLA chapter so far. His Kingston visit was well timed as January is Alzheimer’s Awareness month.
The 60-year-old is a Canada Post employee by day, hockey referee by night and fundraising marathon skater in his free time. He’s skated 19 hours and 26 minutes straight on outdoor rinks from Canada’s coast-to-coast, which meant Saturday’s -23 weather in downtown Kingston wasn’t even close to the worst he’s seen.
“(Saturday’s skate will be) warmer than any my Alberta skates,” McNeil told the Beaver by phone as he travelled Via Rail towards Kingston on Friday. “Winnipeg one year was only -26 so that wasn’t so bad. Western Canada has just been nasty cold every time I go out there.”
That’s not to say this weekend’s skate was easy by any means as it was performed during a cold weather warning issued by KFLA Public Health.
“I’ve always just accepted it as an ambiance for the skate,” he said of the frigid weather. “If you wake up and you walk you dog at 5:30 a.m., and you’re out for 15 minutes and you freeze your (backside) off and then you sit down and turn on the local news channel or the radio station and some guy’s talking about this guy’s been out at Springer Market Square since midnight last night and he’s doing it for 19 and a half hours, it gets people’s attention. I let it work in my favour rather than letting it work against me.”
Despite Saturday’s weather he still had a steady stream of onlookers dropping by the rink to check in on him or ask him what his skate was all about.
This year marks a full decade since McNeil has been taking on the challenge, doing so as a tribute to his mother Eunice-who was born in 1926. She passed away from Alzheimer’s, prompting McNeil to want to do something to fight back against the disease.
“I’ve now come to realize a lot of it was just my own self therapy because of what I was going through and the type of environment you witness when your parents are in one of these facilities for a long period of time,” said McNeil, noting he’s reflected on the cause a lot more now that it’s in its 10th year. “You go through all the different stages, the wandering stages and then once they break their hip, it’s outstanding how many patients end up breaking their hips and a lot of them never end up walking after that. Just that deterioration part, sometimes I would leave the facility where my mother was for 11 or 12 years and that’s all I’d do, I’d just go in the winter time and skate for a couple hours…I was able to put my music in my ears and just kind of get away from everything.”
Steve McNeil gets lost in his music as he glides next to Kingston’s city hall as part of his 19 hour and 26 minute skate. Photo by Adam Prudhomme.
Pumping through his headphones during a typical skate are classic hits by his favourite band, AC/DC. Using the band as inspiration he’s issued the #1926Challenge, calling on local hockey teams to skate for 19 minutes and 26 seconds while AC/DC plays over the loud speakers during their next practice and then post a video to social media.
Though skating non-stop for over 19 hours is a grind, McNeil says its nothing compared to what families go through when dealing with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
“It’s a pretty humbling thing when people come up to you at the side of the rink and bring you a coffee and they start telling me about their mom or their grandma or grandpa or their uncle or their dad,” said McNeil. “To me that sounding board is sometimes the only person they feel can relate what they’re going through. That’s a really special feeling. To be able to take that away from what I do is kind of inspiring to me. It’s like constantly filling up my gas tank.”
McNeil’s visit in Kingston is part of a busy winter he has planned with 10 skates across Ontario. This weekend he’s right back at it with a skate at the military base in Petawawa. On Wednesday he’s in Niagara on the Lake to skate at Wayne Gretzky’s vineyard and then on Saturday he’ll close out his ‘skate-cation’ by doing it all again in Bracebridge. Come Jan. 24 he’ll be right back to delivering the mail in Etobicoke.
For more information on his cause visit www.1926Skate.com and to support the Alzheimer Society of KFLA visit www.alzheimers.ca/kfla.