Kitchen utensils and tree seeds are the only tools you’ll need

Let’s play a little word association. When I say pine, you say tree. When I say ice, you say rink. When I say pine and skate, you say ... Pine Toss.

What’s that, you’ve never heard of pine toss? Well, let’s get you caught up.

For those of you who don’t know, Pine Toss has been around for about a month and involves, quite simply, pine cones, twigs and skates. It’s a game that involves the perfect mixture of agility, strength and endurance. Though ostensibly it’s a game about pine cones, I would suggest using acorns to challenge yourself. A prerequisite knowledge of skating dynamics is preferable.

So, how did it all start? In the early weeks of winter, a couple of friends and I decided ice skating was too costly, building a snowman was too trite and sitting by the fire was too relaxing. We finally decided, after much deliberation, that there had to be some way to take something abundant, use it while skating and craft rules to make the object hard to obtain. The object chosen was the first object we stumbled upon: a pine cone. The difficult method: twigs.

How is it played? You’ll need two teams of three, with each team having one person covering each position: sticker, basket holder and defender. The game begins with each team sending its sticker, the individual holding the pine cone between two twigs, to the center of the ice rink. As soon as the whistle is blown both stickers will skate around each other three times (creating a feeling of disorientation) and proceed in the opposite direction to the opposing team’s basket holder.

There’s a problem, however, because while your team’s sticker awkwardly tries to keep the pine cone between the two branches, the opposing team’s defender is attempting to steal that very pine cone from between the sticker’s makeshift “chopsticks” (chopsticks here is a reference to the sticks, but more advanced players can use actual chop sticks), which are actually salad tongs. If the defender manages to steal the pine cone he has an opportunity to throw it, from the middle of the rink, into the basket for his team, earning the team a point. If, however, the opposing team’s sticker manages to get past the defender, he has the opportunity to drop the pine cone into the basket for one point. No player is allowed to stop skating, and no player is allowed to touch the other player.

So, let’s try this again. When I say pine and skate, you say what? That’s right, Pine Toss.