A reading on Friday will bring together two UWindsor graduates to recall “It all started at Riverside Arena.”

Laurie Smith (BA 1991, B.Ed 1993, BA 1995, MA 1996) recounts that she and Kevin Shea (BA 1977) have been friends since the first day of Grade 1.

“Growing up in the shadow of Riverside Arena, we had no idea how important that rink would be in our lives as writers,” she says.

During Friday’s event, she will read from a 2011 collection of her poetry, The Truth About Roller Skating. Smith describes it as “a suburban coming-of-age story of the ’60s and ’70s.”

Shea has been talking and writing about hockey since first playing the sport at Riverside Arena when he was seven years old. The award-winning author of 12 hockey books and editor of publications and online features for the Hockey Hall of Fame, he is launching his latest books, the abecedarium H is for Hockey and Derek Sanderson: Crossing the Line—a biography written with the former NHL star.

The free public event begins November 9 at 7 p.m. at Biblioasis Books, 1520 Wyandotte Street East.