What a Way to Spend a Saturday Night

This all seemed like a good idea when we ran into Will Chabun from the Leader Post at the Fieldhouse at some point before Christmas and he told us he was planning to spend an evening working at the Bodega's Ice Bar. "Its for a good cause" he said. "It is a fund raiser and all proceeds go to Transition House." 


Eric thought, "You know, our Friday Night Floor Hockey team could do that" and before we could say "Vanilla vodka" we were committed.


So, we dropped in for a drink. We got tips from Will about how to dress for an evening outside, tending a bar made completely of ice. We stood chatting around the fire and Will  Chabun got a column out of it. 


The Ice Bar was built by Peter Fogerty and sits inside the courtyard at La Bodega, probably my favorite Regina restaurants. La Bodega's owner, Adam Sperling has the ice bar built every winter and all the money raised from the bar goes to Transition House, which provides safe refuge for women and children affected by violence. It has been the ice bar's charity of choice for the fourth straight year 


In advance of all this we dug up all our warmest clothes and we monitored the extended forecast  day by day and things looked good - warming up - perhaps some light flurries - light wind - then, just our luck, Saturday arrived along with snow, strong winds and minus 15 with a wind chill that brought it below - 25. In a word "cold."


Yvette did the first shift, Eric and Donna were there all evening and Shelley and I worked from 8:00 to Midnight. No doubt about it it, there was a chill in the air but, we had a lot of fun.

Friends dropped by, Anne and Dave brought cookies, customers dropped in telling us they come every year because it is so much fun and one women came to have her picture taken at the bar because she was flying to Mexico the next day and wanted to show everyone around the pool how we do it in Canada.


At some point a limo pulled up and 16 young women in high heels  and higher spirits swooped into the bar for a shot of vodka - we obviously were't their first stop. They were all in short sleeve tops, no coats and having a ball. Eighty dollars later out they went, whooping and hollering, back to the limo and on to the next bar.


By the time midnight rolled around we were pretty damn cold but as we warmed up in the restaurant we felt pretty good about the fact that we'd raised over $700.


Just as the feeling was starting to come back to my toes Eric said, "You know, maybe we should do this again in February."  I must have been in shock from the hyporthermia because before I could stop myself I answered, "Sure Eric, lets."


If you can't make it to the ice bar this winter but still want to support Transition House you can donate on line through their website.