Canzano: There's no day like a snow day

My relationship with snow is complicated.

Snow hit the Pacific Northwest on Thursday.

We’ve been bamboozled a few times.

So forgive me for not trusting the local school district when it shut down on Thursday “due to forecasted” weather. The text alert arrived at 6:26 a.m., and there wasn’t a flake in the sky.

What is it about the snow that makes us crazy?

My youngest two daughters, 8 and 10, bounced around the house before breakfast, talking about snowballs, snow angels, and snowmen. They wondered if the storm might last more than a day. They love nothing more than rolling around in snow and sledding down a nearby hill.

I didn’t grow up in the snow. We lived in the South Bay Area of California. When I was a kid, my parents piled us into the car and drove us several hours away to the mountains a few times. Once, we pulled off on a roadside not far from Lake Tahoe, and we scrambled into the white powder, wearing blue jeans and sneakers.

The adventure lasted a few glorious minutes. No snow gloves, boots, or waterproof pants for us. My mother must have enjoyed the outing because a black-and-white photo of the scene hung on my parents’ living room wall throughout my childhood.

I’m maybe 11 or 12 in the picture. I’m wearing a soaking wet windbreaker, and the expressions on my siblings’ faces are a mixture of delight and exasperation.

Actual cold weather people must laugh at the rest of us.

We shut down the schools and lose our minds every time there’s a dusting of snow. There’s a run at the grocery store on essentials. Those of us who have generators “gas up” and hunker down. Youth sports practices, even the indoor ones, are called off. And we comfort ourselves by telling each other: “Hey, we have hills and ice. They don’t have hills and ice like this in Chicago.” The truth is, if the streets were flat, we’d have no idea what to do.

Years ago, I lived in Northeast Indiana. I was covering Notre Dame football and on the Indiana basketball beat. The first snowstorm brought a cruel realization — I had no clue how to drive in the snow or prepare for winter conditions. I was lost and got mocked for it.

“Snowpeople” go into a mode.

The shovels come out. The roads get plowed. The schools stay open. I will never forget digging my car out of a couple of feet of snow one morning, only to find the door locks frozen. I didn’t know this was a thing. I nearly broke the key off in the lock before a neighbor who knew I was from the west coast came stumbling out his front door and shouting at me. He had an extension cord and a hair dryer. It did the trick.

A little hand sanitizer, de-icer spray, or rubbing alcohol also works. Just coat the car key and insert it into the lock. Or use a glass of warm water gently poured over the lock area. Do NOT attempt to use an open flame. Terrible idea.

I read Jack London often as a kid. He was one of my favorite authors. When I’m in the snow, I think about the French-Canadian government mail carrier, Perrault, from “Call of the Wild.” Perrault was an expert navigator, unemotional and business-like in harsh conditions. He often walked in front of the dog-sled team, clearing a path, packing down the snow, looking for weak spots.

I wish I were more like him.

Except — I can’t stand the cold.

I used a plastic grocery store bag and some duct tape on my feet when I was a kid one time in the snow. I pulled the plastic bag over my sneaker and taped it around my ankle. My toes froze, but my socks stayed dry. It was a big victory. Still, Perrault would’ve mocked me.

Two daughters, 8 and 10, on Thursday morning in a light snow fall.

We have a couple of sleds that sit on the side of the house for 51 weeks, waiting for a day such as Thursday. My children have snowsuits, gloves, hats, goggles, and boots. They have a very different relationship with the snow than I did.

Football in the snow?

Love it? Or no? There’s something about tuning into a football game and seeing snow on the field. The players, game officials, and play callers are forced to adapt. Sometimes, the better team wins. Other times, the winner is simply the team that does a better job of handling the challenging weather conditions.

Big Ten Commissioner Tony Pettiti told me last summer that the weather variations would be one of the most interesting aspects of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff and opening-round games on campuses.

“You’ll see some cold weather. You’ll see some warm weather. You’ll see a little bit of everything,” Pettiti told me. “Ultimately, it will be a really good system, and I think fans will gravitate toward it.”

I cringed in the last couple of football seasons when I read stories about fans in Kansas City and Buffalo who suffered frostbite while rooting for their NFL teams. A wildcard game in Jan. 2024 at Arrowhead Stadium between the Chiefs and Dolphins featured game temperatures that dipped below zero. The Kansas City Fire Department later said that 15 people at the game were taken to the hospital.

As I wrote that last paragraph, my 10-year-old daughter appeared in the doorway with a giant smile on her face and rosy cheeks. She’s been playing in the snow all morning.

“My hair is frozen to my head,” she announced.

I’m a sports columnist. You may be here to read about the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West, or what I think about the Trail Blazers’ topsy-turvy season. I have lots of thoughts on those things. But snow dominated my morning.

The schools shut down.

Snowballs were thrown.

Snow angels were performed.

Let’s maybe do it again next year.

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