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This is a tough sell when the health unit is warning about losing fingers to frostbite, but Ottawa can and should do more to embrace winter rather than resisting it.

We do a lot already. We piled into the Crashed Ice downhill-skating competition last March in such numbers that crowd-control was a problem. We packed the outdoor stands at Lansdowne for a snowy Grey Cup and again a couple of weeks later for a frigid Sens-Habs outdoor hockey game. Last New Year’s Eve, thousands of people stood in blowing snow to see fireworks shooting off from behind Parliament.

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Photo by Wayne Cuddington / Postmedia

This Sunday is forecast to one of the chilliest parts of this freeze-your-truffles-off cold snap, but I’ll bet you it doesn’t make that much difference to interest in the New Year’s Eve dance party on the Hill.

The Rideau Canal skateway is Ottawa’s prime winter attraction. As I wrote yesterday, for as long as the National Capital Commission has been keeping stats, its counters have recorded a pretty consistent average of 20,000 skaters a day when it’s open — as many as 30,000 in really good years, but no fewer than 15,000, even when the weather’s been borderline and conditions have been poor. Even in long seasons, interest doesn’t wane.