VANCOUVER, British Columbia — On a recent Friday afternoon, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arrived in the form of a text message to many of Vancouver’s elite hockey players. It was a last-minute, impromptu invitation to perhaps the world’s most scenic and unorthodox pickup pond hockey game.

With the instructions vague and the destination unknown, the message read like a top-secret mission.

“My old teammate basically wrote, ‘Hey, we’re playing hockey tomorrow at the top of a mountain, are you in?’ ” said Federico Angel, 28, a former goaltender at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. “There was no other explanation.”

Early the next morning, on Nov. 28, the selected players met at the mouth of Pitt Lake, where a jet boat escorted them through a trail of fog to an isolated beach. There, helicopters transported them to a winter oasis perched at 5,500 feet, with the rink enclosed by majestic ice-capped mountains.