Stop by a park hockey rink in Albert Lea. It doesn’t take long to know there are plenty of kids passionate about hockey.

With skates and sticks, without pads or formal rules, kids glide around outdoor rinks yelling “gooooal,” and occasionally “dumping” one of their friends over the boards into a pile of snow on the other side.

Take a minute to talk with someone like fourth-grader Max Brick and the passion is much clearer — especially considering the hardships that come with playing out in the elements without all that excess stuff, namely the helmet and pads.

Brick remembers a painful day about two years ago playing hockey at the park.

“We were having a game and I was in the net and I got hit with a puck right across the eye,” Brick said.

Four stitches and two days later, the lively youngster was back on the ice.

Brick and six of his friends were out Tuesday afternoon playing a 4-on-3 pick-up game at Lakeview Park.

With an odd number and varying skill levels, the seven divided teams and created some modified rules. One team scored the old-fashioned way, by finding the back of a net. But for a handicap, their opponents were forced to hit the pipe for a score.

Pick-up hockey games are played throughout the city by people as young as three or four through their 20s, said Jake Vietze, an 18-year-old warming house attendant who still plays an occasional game of park hockey.

Warming houses are usually open from 4 to 9 p.m. on weekdays and from 1 to 8 p.m. on weekends. They are located at Academy, Hawthorne, Hayek and Lakeview parks in Albert Lea.

There are, of course, some downsides to the rough-and-tumble outdoor pastime. The ragged ice and a lack of official rules sometimes create a hazard, said seventh-grader Andrew Thompson, 13.

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“It’s more fun when you can have the refs out here and call penalties because you get slashed a lot,” he said. “And you get hit with the puck. The goalies come out here and don’t wear pads.”

Despite the ouch factor, Matt Scheever wouldn’t want to be elsewhere on a bitter winter day.

“It’s better than sitting in the house doing nothing,” Scheever said. “And you can just hang out with your friends and play hockey. You can just have fun.”