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New Pond Hockey Paintings

Where It Was Born: New Pond Hockey Paintings

I never grew up skating on ponds. Yes, I am Canadian, but I live on the West Coast, where winter rarely settles in long enough for ice to thicken and hold. Pond hockey belongs to another geography. But if you grew up anywhere east of British Columbia, chances are you did. A frozen pond. A backyard rink. A farmer’s flooded field.

New Pond Hockey Paintings

Pond Hockey Days, c. 2021 Acrylic On Canvas 36 x 48 x 1.5 in – Private Collection, Victoria Canada – Brandy Saturley

I have heard those stories countless times, gathered around backyard fire pits where Canadians trade memories of cold fingers, cracked ice, and last light games. I am also quietly obsessed with the Outdoor Hockey Club videos on YouTube. They capture something essential about skating outdoors, not just the game, but the feeling. The openness. The camaraderie. The way winter becomes a shared experience rather than something to endure.

The Prodigy, 2021 Acrylic On Canvas 36 x 48 x 1.5 in – Private Collection, Montreal Canada – Brandy Saturley

Over the years, I have painted more than a few hockey paintings under my #iconiccanuck lens. Early on, my work focused on the NHL and its larger mythology. Eventually, I stepped back to where the passion for hockey is truly born: the outdoor rink. These paintings struck a different chord with Canadians, one rooted less in spectacle and more in memory, emotion, and lived experience.

Glide Away, c. 2023 Acrylic On Canvas 36 x 48 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

In recent years, that exploration has widened to include skating without the stick. A quieter ritual. A pastime that keeps people moving, social, and connected through the long winters of the true north.

Last One Out, c. 2024 Acrylic On Canvas 24 x 30 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

New Pond Hockey Paintings

Fast-forward to two new paintings I have just completed. Both are set on outdoor ponds in Ontario, where winter hockey feels expansive and uncontained. One painting features a solitary figure kicking a puck across unmanicured ice, with downtown Toronto and the CN Tower standing in the distance, a meeting of wilderness and city.

New Pond Hockey Paintings

Toronto Winter, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 30 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

The second painting shows a group of men on an ODR, dressed in plaid shirts and jogging pants, skate laces tied around pant legs. It is unpolished, unscripted, and full of joy, the kind of winter afternoon that exists outside of time.

New Pond Hockey Paintings

Pushing the Puck, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 30 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

These new works extend my ongoing visual stories about pond hockey, a tradition woven deeply into the fabric of Canada, where the game was never just played, but lived.

See more ice hockey paintings here.

Ice Skating Art

Painting People on Outdoor Ponds – Ice Skating Art in Canada

Recently, The Canadian Art Junkie published a feature on The Art of Skating, highlighting Canadian artists who have celebrated outdoor skating through visual storytelling on canvas. It is a subject deeply woven into the fabric of Canadian art history. From Alex Colville to Ken Danby, many painters before me have been drawn to skating as both image and metaphor. Whether it’s an outdoor hockey rink, a game of shinny, families circling a frozen pond, or the quiet focus of a lone figure skater, skating offers endless material to keep a painter’s brush in motion.

Ice Skating Art

The Prodigy, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 48 x 1.5 in, 2021 – Brandy Saturley

Over the years, the theme of ice skating has surfaced again and again in my own work. That feels fitting, as Canadian winter is not merely endured, it is actively lived on ice. From farmers’ fields flooded and frozen on the Prairies, to glassy mountain lakes in Alberta, from the Great Lakes to small backyard ponds, skating is one of the most democratic and joyful ways Canadians meet winter head-on. It turns cold into community.

Ice Skating Art

Pond Hockey Days, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 48 x 1.5 in, 2021 – Brandy Saturley

Painting skaters outdoors allows me to explore more than motion. It’s about atmosphere, breath in the air, the scrape of blades against ice, the muted soundscape that comes with snow-covered land. Skaters become small but essential figures within vast winter landscapes, reminding us of our scale in nature and our resilience within it. Often bundled in parkas, scarves, and knit hats, they carry a distinctly Canadian silhouette, recognizable even without faces.

Detail view – Glide Away, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 48 x 1.5 in, 2021 – Brandy Saturley

There is also a quiet nostalgia embedded in these scenes. Outdoor skating often exists outside of structured time. It happens at dusk after school, on weekends, during holidays, or in those fleeting moments when the ice is just right. Painting these scenes becomes a way of preserving a shared memory. Many viewers tell me they can feel themselves back on the ice when they encounter these works, toes numb, cheeks burning, laughter echoing across a frozen surface.

Ice Skating Art

Vortex, Acrylic on canvas, 48×36, 2021 – Brandy Saturley

Historically, skating in Canadian painting has often been used to speak about balance, discipline, and grace, but also about play. It sits at the intersection of sport and leisure, survival and joy. That duality continues to interest me. A frozen pond can be both serene and energetic, expansive yet intimate. It’s a stage where stories unfold without spectacle, where everyday life quietly becomes worthy of paint.

girls hockey painting

We Dream, Acrylic On Canvas, 30 x 30 x 1.5 in, 2022 – Brandy Saturley

In a country where winter defines so much of our rhythm, skating remains one of the most poetic expressions of how we adapt, celebrate, and gather. To paint people skating outdoors is to paint a very particular Canadian way of being in the world. One where cold sharpens awareness, community forms organically, and the landscape is never just a backdrop, but an active participant in the story.

Angel of Snow & Ice, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 48 x 1.5 in, 2023 – Brandy Saturley

Ice, after all, is never still. And neither are we.

 

Pond Hockey Paintings

Capturing the Feeling of Outdoor Pond Hockey, On Canvas.

The upside of COVID, a return to enjoying hockey, in the great outdoors. Whether on a pond, backyard rink, or an iconic and scenic outdoor lake; we are embracing a return to enjoying playing hockey outdoors. These pond hockey paintings, celebrate a return to the enjoyment of hockey.

In 2020, I let isolation lead when producing new paintings under a pandemic culture. With a new year, a new start and fresh perspective on the paintings I want to make to celebrate what connects us most; our love of nature and celebration of the great outdoors. Working in paintings two by two, I am exploring our Winter pastimes on snow, ice, and ocean. Completed in February this year, my first two paintings celebrate falling in love with hockey again, outdoors. Returning to the child and those pure moments of discovery and enjoyment, on ice. Here are the first two paintings of 2021, filled with ice, snow, innocence, celebration and discovery.

Pond Hockey Days (Salad Days on Ice): whether you play shinny, pond hockey or on the backyard rink; this is where hockey was born and became part of the culture, worldwide.

Pond Hockey Paintings

The Prodigy: looking through the ice upwards to the Northern sky. A shadowy figure of a young boy in a red sweater and toque, with mittens and with hockey skates. He reaches out towards a black rubber hockey puck, the prodigy is born.

pond hockey paintings

These paintings celebrating outdoor hockey are alive with vivid colours of red and orange against a range of blues. With the palette of each my goal was to capture the electricity and energy of playing outdoors in the Winter. To create my signature smoothness and texture, I utilize a myriad of painting techniques I have developed over the last twenty years as an artist. These pieces were created using my handmade Rosemary paintbrushes from England, my gloved hands blending with fingers on canvas, as well as everyday paint rollers to produce the snow and ice effects.

In Canada, we know how to celebrate our long Winter, through making the outdoors our indoors.

Cheers to all the outdoor hockey lovers! The Prodigy has SOLD, Pond Hockey Days is available to own today. Pay in full up front, or finance from $176/month through our partner Art Lease Canada.

Sincerely Yours,

Brandy Saturley (a.k.a #iconiccanuck )