So You Think You Can Skate?

A few weeks ago the Netherlands was hit with a cold snap. All around the country, water turned to ice and the Dutch turned into Olympic Class skaters….or did they….

It appears that when the water turned to ice, something in the Cloggies also changed. No where in Holland was a patch of ice safe, as within minutes Cloggies wearing ice skates and chanting “I’m Dutch, I can skate, it’s in my blood!” invaded the ice. It didn’t matter that most of these skates hadn’t seen the light of day in years or that the Cloggies themselves had forgotten how to use them (or had never used them before) but suddenly every Cloggie was an unleashed Cloggie skating champion.

This unharnessed enthusiasm has however caused a few mishaps, primarily in the realm of money. It is estimated that this sudden Dutch skating invasion has cost the Netherlands an estimated 82 million Euros! The Cloggies themselves didn’t fare much better with 1 in 4 Cloggies (around 13,000 Cloggies!) requiring hospital treatment of some type.

And what were the top injuries? Nineteen percent of the Cloggies sustained a knee injury, ten percent a wrist injury, four percent a hip injury and three percent a head injury.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom however, as according to the research organization TNO, some Cloggies did bring along some safety protection, although their choices do leave many a bit concerned. According to TNO almost everybody brought along a mobile phone (but for the 3% of skaters that went through the ice or the 4% who had to try and call with a wrist injury – that didn’t help much!), 2% had a helmet, 14% knee shields and a whole 29% brought along an ice pick. Yes thats correct….an ice pick….who knows how many injuries were caused due to falling on the ice pick or for ice related fights where the ice pick became a weapon…but indeed an ice pick was the second favourite in protection gear.

Luckily as the ice has melted, the ice skates have now been put away (and hopefully those ice picks too!) until the next cold snap.

Happy skating…

Cloggie In Training

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