A short drive to a faraway place

An errand this week turned into a trip to the past.

Outside and inside Doug Woog Arena in South St. Paul.

Concord Street, also known as Highway 156, is an interesting suburban marvel.

Far from the neat grids of planned retail, separated from the distinct tracts of residential areas that you might find in newer planned communities, the stretch that takes you quickly from the city of St. Paul to the nearby older suburb of South St. Paul is a hodge-podge of surprises.

That anyone decided to put a road there in the first place — with the Mississippi River on one side and high bluffs on the other — speaks to a long-ago choice that both restricted and informed what sort of development could be shoehorned into the space.

I’m sure I had driven the roughly four-mile stretch before this week, but it likely had been at least a decade. And I know I’ve never experienced it with the same curiosity as I did Wednesday.

I made notes in my head as I drove. A restaurant here. A few blocks later, a gas station. Houses perched securely but also precariously among the steep cliffs.

Soon after: A classic dive bar — the kind of place where an outsider wouldn’t be sure if it had been closed for five years or open that day until they pulled the handle of a windowless door.

It felt like I had traveled multiple hours and was coasting through a small town bisected by a highway.

By the time I reached my destination — a service center at my car dealership that I had never visited in the 10 years since I bought the car at a different location that I’ve always assumed was closer to my house — I was in a strangely whimsical mood.

And then I saw the sign: Doug Woog Arena. I had of course been there before, though probably 20 years ago — long before it was named after one of South St. Paul’s hockey legends but long after Woog started to figure prominently in my life.

Turn left, and it’s the dealership. Turn right, and it’s the arena. I made a mental note that it would be close enough to walk, then headed to the task at hand.

In making the appointment, it had been suggested that the maintenance could take up to six hours. But upon check-in, I was happily informed it would take no more than two-and-a-half.

Perfect, I thought. I settled into the spacious lobby, content to wait. There were complimentary snacks, coffee and wi-fi as well as ample places to set up and work.

I began to half-seriously daydream about how many days I could show up there and use it as a remote office before it would become suspicious.

After about 90 minutes of blissfully uninterrupted work, I packed up my things. I’m not entirely sure why I was so compelled to walk to Doug Woog Arena, but the lure was undeniable.

I decided I would know why I was there once I got there.

You have to traverse a big hill to get to the arena, a testament again to the bluffs of the area. Every other time I’ve been there, this has been by car.

The approach, as one would imagine, is different on foot.

I notice there are just two vehicles in the entire parking lot. It’s mid-to-late-afternoon on a Wednesday. The thought occurs to me for the first time: Maybe the arena is not even open?

I tentatively walk up to the door and pull. It opens right up. And suddenly I’m somewhere so foreign yet so familiar.

Having spent countless hours in arenas much like this one — and in this one specifically many times — everything seems in its proper place.

There is a lobby with testaments to the past. There is a large trophy case. A concession stand is in the middle toward the back, and big doors on each side lead to two separate full ice sheets.

One of the sheets is unoccupied. On the other, two skaters and a goalie work on their craft. Two other workers are milling around the arena. Nobody seems concerned that I’m there, shuffling around with strange interest on this random afternoon, a sort of freedom that in and of itself feels foreign these days.

I spot a machine full of lollipops promising a winner every time. You put in 50 cents and you are going to get anywhere between 1 and 10 of them. I think about how our kids would love this machine so much and would possibly bankrupt our family two quarters at a time if they ever tagged along.

Above the main sheet of ice are banners commemorating state tournament appearances. South St. Paul made the boys’ hockey state tournament a whopping 28 times between 1945 and 1996, but the Packers never won a state title. They haven’t reached state since 2004, which was in the midst of South St. Paul’s girls’ hockey dynasty that included four state championships in five years.

That era is probably the last time I was in arena, and I’m transported back in time.

It’s circa 2003: I’m in venues like this dozens of times, covering the thrills of high school hockey in Minnesota. Section finals were always the best: Usually at intimate rinks, often between fierce rivals, always with a trip to state on the line. The games mean more. The tears on both benches are real.

Then it’s 1997: I’m covering the University of Minnesota men’s hockey team at my college paper. Woog, the South St. Paul legend, is the head coach. It’s the biggest beat I had covered at the time, complete with travel to almost every road series.

Woog is an all-time character, though he’s getting toward the end of a run that — not unlike South St. Paul — never produces an NCAA title during his time. I can still remember him searching for words to describe what it’s like to play in the high altitude of Colorado. “Oxygen is very … very … very … critical.”

In my head now it’s any winter between roughly 1986 and 1992: I’m back in North Dakota, my hometown of Grand Forks, playing hockey outside. I never joined an organized team, but I played in hundreds of pickup games over the years. Games of “hog” with a sponge puck would do as long as there were three of us.

Now it’s the early 1960s: I’m in the lobby and living vicariously, reading about how when Woog played for South St. Paul, their home practices and games were on an outdoor ice sheet.

He helped build the arena that would eventually bear his name — which for a long time was called Wakota, before being renamed in Woog’s honor eight years ago — but never played there in high school.

I think about how Woog’s high school seasons would have lasted about a week if they happened during this year’s absurdly mild winter. On this mid-March day, still technically a week before the start of spring, it’s in the mid-60s.

I strain to recall when Woog died even though I know it was important to me at the time. Now it makes sense: December 2019 at age 75, just a few months before COVID turned worlds upside down and made a jumble of our memories.

Now it’s late Wednesday afternoon again. I step out of the arena into the sunlight and start walking back.

I see a car that looks like mine coming down the road. Then I realize it is my car, that the mechanic is taking it for a test spin and I will be released back into the world soon.

Not far from the dealership, there is a trailhead that I passed on the way there. I had made another one of those mental notes to perhaps stop there sometime because it looked nice.

So I decide, why not now?

It’s called Simon’s Ravine. It looks to be a gap between all the bluffs as well as a nicely paved trail.

An older couple is about embark on the trail — the man on foot, the woman riding a mobility scooter.

After walking the trail for just a few minutes, everything is impossibly quiet save for the occasional distant car and, one time, a persistent woodpecker. I walk up a hill and through a fairly long tunnel, then decide it’s probably time to head home.

On the way back, in the tunnel, I see writing in chalk that I hadn’t noticed on the way out. It’s scrawled in what looks like a child’s handwriting:

“Life is too short. Have a nice day.”

It’s so simple that it’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful that it hurts.

I get back into my car and find directions for the drive home.

It turns out there’s a faster way to get where I’m going than the way that I came.

But I decide to go back the same way.