The Pond Hockey Classic is back!

The Montana Pond Hockey classic is back where it belongs — on Foys Lake.

The popular tournament got started in February 2014 with a very successful initial outing, but the 2015 tournament had to be moved to Woodland Park due to inadequate ice at Foys Lake. Then in 2016, the event had to be canceled altogether when unseasonably warm temperatures left even the lagoon at Woodland Park unskateable.

That led the event’s sponsor, the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau, to reschedule this year’s event to January, and the weather is for the most part cooperating. Arctic chills the past few weeks have created solid ice at Foy’s Lake, and the weather this weekend will warm up enough so that the skaters and their fans will be able to enjoy themselves without risk of frostbite!

Many of last year’s registered teams signed up again this year, and with well over 70 teams arriving from across the United States and into Canada, it promises to be a fun weekend.

It all gets started tonight at Moose’s Saloon with player check-in from 5-9, and games get started Friday morning at 8:30. A beer garden, community skate rink, and kids activities will add to the festive atmosphere throughout the weekend.

A full guide to the event was published in last Sunday’s Inter Lake, or visit www.pondhockeyclassic.com/montana for more information.

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•Farewell to Ringling Bros.

Not everyone realized it, but when Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus announced it was shutting down for good, it marked the end of a long Montana tradition.

John Ringling, one of the brothers who originally owned the Ringling Bros. circus at the turn of the 20th century, used part of his fortune to buy close to 100,000 acres in Eastern Montana. He also built a railroad in the area, and the town of Leader changed its name to Ringling in his honor. For a while, the combined circus even had its winter home in Ringling, which despite being in the northern climes is reportedly frequently snow free.

Times change, of course, and with increasing government regulation and changing tastes, the circus will fade into history come this May, but for many a generation of boys and girls, the circus was a place of enchantment and imagination — indeed, “The Greatest Show on Earth.”