I couldn’t tell you about all the great memories I’ve been fortunate enough to make without introducing two of my best and closest friends.

This is Esther and Sean. Since we all work together, I got to spend the afternoon with the two of them where we all drive the Zamboni at the Utah Olympic Oval.

I don’t hesitate to say that this is the most wholesome picture of them that I’ve ever seen. Photo credit courtesy of me.

Sean and I started working together as skate guards when we were probably 17 or 18. We were not friends at the start. In fact, I cant remember us thinking very highly of eachother back then. He annoyed me. It was no mystery why; he was the hocky-guy, popular ladies man. I was a chubby kid. Wow, I haven’t been that honest about it till now.

When we were 18, we transfered to the operatrains departement where he and I were trained on the Zamboni. Sean switched departments first, and without any collusion, I switched a few months later. Mind you that ice maintenance didn’t typically train Zam drivers fresh out of highschool, and operations workers were usually more experienced, thus older than Sean and I. The ops guys weren’t exactly our type of crowd back then. And since our boss scheduled us on the same shifts, Sean and I had a lot of time to get acquainted. As different from eachother as we were, we kicked off as friends because of how hard we goofed around at work, and probably our mutual respect for the bro-code.

Esther came from Lake Placid to train in long track speedskating. Her and Sean began dating about two and a half years ago. Esther began hanging around and joined as the sixth member of our squad. We all went so many places together, got in trouble together, and have seen eachother through relationships come and go.

Now, I get to work with Esther, and I get to catch up with Sean when he’s not busy getting ahead in the world.

I’m so proud of you two Esther and Sean. Thanks for all the good times and the better ones to come!

Erik H.