Although the thermometer has been above freezing for most of the past weeks, in recent days, winter has come back with a vengeance. The morning of the kilt skate dawned with temperatures of minus-25 with the wind chill, and a blizzard forecast for that evening. But none of this stopped the intrepid skaters, many of whom have been coming out year after year ever since Ottawa hosted its first kilt skate to celebrate the bicentennial of Sir John A. Macdonald in 2015.