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This is the fifth of a 10-part series featuring Canadian

writers' true tales of love.

I'm in training this summer.

Nothing too serious (I don't think my toddler-lifting, just-turned-40 hardware could take it) but focused nonetheless. Squeezing some sweat out of that long-neglected gym membership, facing the hard truth of the bathroom scales, switching from Carlsberg to Carlsberg Light. A man looking to lose 10 pounds and 10 years in 10 weeks, when the beer league hockey season heats up. Because this fall I'm coming out of retirement, lacing on the Bauers, and taking to the ice once more. A work-at-home novelist resuming his duties as a stay-at-home defenceman. And this ridiculous plan - as with so many, if not all, ridiculous plans - is the result of a love story.

Allow me to explain.

Before our daughter, Maude, was born, everyone my wife Heidi and I knew who had kids (and a good number who didn't) offered us unsolicited warnings about how a child's presence in our lives would impact us on the romance front. "Get in as much sex, dinners out, sex, movies and sex as you can before she's born," they would moan like ghosts. "Because once she's here, say goodbye to all that." Obligatory hey-kids-are-still-great footnotes would inevitably follow these abandon-hope-all-ye-who-repro-duce grumbles. It didn't matter. The real message was clear: Children are miracles, but they're miracles that kill.

I assumed these foretellings of our child placing us under house arrest were exaggerations. People have been having babies as long as there have been people. And did all of them wave white flags after cutting the cord? If so, how could second or third children ever happen? Besides, we were different from these other beaten souls, weren't we? We had more imagination, more lust, more energy. And our kid would be of the brilliant, sweet-tempered, self-cleaning variety, like a von Trapp without all the singing.

Then Maude was born. And all the thinking and talking turned to doing.

While the first year with Maude wasn't nearly as bad as all the baby anti-hype would've had us believe, it wasn't exactly champagne and Victoria's Secret every night either. The first casualty was sleep. And with sleep went spontaneity. And with spontaneity went a good part of what used to go by the name of romance.

But we fought back. Our marriage - no, not our marriage, our cliff's edge grip on youth, our status as lovers instead of partners - was on the line. This was war. And we weren't about to lie down and let the tidal pull of Disney DVDs and Polly Pockets float us off to boring, bloated breederhood.

Our first line of defence? Date night.

Every Friday evening last winter we reserved the services of an A-list babysitter to let us be robbed blind at new restaurants head-scratchingly praised by critics, or go shoulder-to-shoulder with texting teens at the multiplex, or attend cultural events that had us wishing for bed by the time the canapés appeared. Yes, we were babyless. Yes, our clothes were (mostly) free of pureed organic sweet potato stains. Yes, we were out on a date. But when you date with a gun to your head, changing diapers can feel like a surprise party.

Christmas came. My wife got me skates.

We were spending the holidays at her parents' place in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, in a village so idyllic that, to our Toronto-weary eyes, it tested the boundaries between reality and postcard. We went on a horse-drawn sleigh ride through trees heavy with snow. Watched the moon turn the frozen lake blue. Held each other by the fire, the baby asleep upstairs. But the best of all was skating on the outdoor rink by the river. Heidi's mitten held in my glove, the two of us working our way around the goosebumped ice. Neither of us had skated in years. We'd forgotten the charm of it: the push-and-glide, the crossover, the accelerated air a gentle roar in our ears. We stopped to kiss a lot, too. Felt like kids. Kids with a kid.

When we returned to the city, date night became skate night. For what remained of the cold weather we spent our Friday nights down at the outdoor rink at Harbourfront, lapping the pond-shaped ice and passing a flask between us as we waited for the Zamboni to do its thing. Looking north: the skyline's looming pillars of light. Looking south: the broad shadow of Lake Ontario. But mostly we looked at each other, sharing news of the week that had passed but soon turning the conversation to future plans. Trips we will take. Weekends we will steal. Pleasures for Maude, yes, but also just for us. All this as we flew over the frozen grey sheet, hand in hand.

Then summer arrived. The Toronto jungle heat taking away our ice and returning date night to its dining out and cocktail party patterns. But we're still having more fun than the baby naysayers said we would, and anyway, winter will eventually return.

In the meantime, I have some getting in shape to do. Because my wife thinks I should play hockey again. (God knows I watch enough of it from the sofa, shouting obscenities at the multi-millionaires on TV). It's been almost 20 years since I last slapped stick to puck, but Heidi figures if I enjoyed hockey half as much as I enjoyed skating it would be worth the price of used shoulder pads. And she added that she found the idea of me donning my Leafs jersey and using it for more than a nacho napkin "kinda sexy." That's all she had to say.

So now I'm in training. I'm told it's good for me. Shed a couple pounds, flush out the arteries. Skating is the swimming of winter: the perfect exercise. And that's all fine, I'll take whatever side benefits might be coming my way. But really, I'm doing it for love.

Andrew Pyper's new novel is The Killing Circle.