Bobby Orr, one of the greatest hockey players of all time, recently said that he grew up in his native Canada during a better time. Orr said, "We played at the school rink and on the bay and on the river. We'd leave home in the morning—and your mother would say be home by dark. We played all day, and those are my happiest memories of the game. We'll never see that again."

A Canadian newspaper claims that Orr is right. A story reports on "safety-minded bureaucrats" who are putting an end to an apparently "dangerous" activity—pickup games on homemade hockey rinks. In Ontario a family faced a possible fine of $25,000 fine for putting a homemade rink in their front yard. A community near Calgary tried to create (and fully insure) a local pond hockey league, but the town council intervened, citing "liability" issues. Then in north Edmonton, a mother of three was shoveling the pond behind her home when the local authorities slapped her with a $100 fine. Her crime? Modifying the "land in a way likely to cause injury."

"There were no boards, no lights, there wasn't even a net," the mom said, "I grew up where you shoveled off a rink and all the kids just came. They brought their sticks, they brought their gloves and a good old hockey game broke out. Now you can't even shovel off a rink?"

Possible Preaching Angles: Discipleship, Risk, Faith, Courage—Are we trying to make our lives so safe and so risk-free that we limit our ability to follow Christ?