I bet the weather has been a challenge for anyone struggling to maintain a backyard rink this year. If it wasn't a thaw, we had several inches of wet, clumpy snow that froze into a bumpy mess.

I have always wondered about a backyard rink. While it seems like it would be fun, I wonder if it would actually get used enough to be worth the trouble. And, not that I care about "lawn," but doesn't it leave the grass all smushed down and create a giant torn-up mudhole? Which I suppose could be fun in its own regard.

Do you have a backyard rink? How much hassle was it to put in? How often do you (or your kids) use it? Is it worth it?

While temps for the next week are solidly in the 20s, we're getting close to the end of weather cold enough to keep a backyard rink viable. WITHOUT starting a discussion of human-prompted climate change (all screeds will be edited or deleted), do you think the season has grown shorter for outdoor ice, or stayed about the same?

PLEASE post pics! We all want to see your backyard rink! Stories are great too--did you stage a neighborhood game? Do the kids all come over on Sunday for hockey and brunch? Share your vignettes.

the people I know with the backyard rinks are pre-fabbed somewhere and the basement is pretty much dedicated to hockey-putting on skates, equipment, bathroom etc. These people do it every year for their kids and gownups and even have had fundraisers using hockey tournaments. These are inner city folks with lots of land...somehow and I have never heard anything about grass in the summer-I am sure they have a lawn service to take care of anything. The owners do put up the rinks and like a built in pool in the summer it attract both kids and adults. Sorry no pics.

jodyelmasry

This is the third year of my rink. This year it is 24' x 40'. Never had a problem with the grass the next spring. The key is to get the tarp off as quickly as feasible. No point in leaving it lie there once the ice is gone. That would definitely kill the grass.

It took about 4 hours to get the boards in place and the tarp laid. Another full day - 10 hours - to get the rink flooded. After that is was just occasional maintenance waterings every couple of days. Until the Christmas snow storm. That took an additional half day of flooding to raise the level of the rink to cover the bumpy ice the storm left. Smooth as glass once again.

My son skated every day in December, and every 3rd day or so in January. It is too small for me to skate on but I play in my boots with him.

Well worth the investment. I fully expect the rink to grow each year. I think in 5 years or so it will be 35' x 60'.

First year for our rink. 24 x 50. Great size for my 8 year old player. I can even practice my shooting on the full size goal. I spent 2 months prior to setup researching backyard rinks. I have 2 x 12 boards all the way around and I bought a 28 x 56 - 7 mil liner that they use for covering boats for the winter. It was well worth the $130 and I'm amazed at how pliable it is even at sub zero temps. The ice is 4 inches at one end and 11 inches at the other due to the slope in our yard. We flooded 8 hours in the middle of December. A week later we had 4 inches of ice when the first snowstorm hit. The snow pushed the ice down then crusted over. It took a week of nightly flooding to get the surface level. I was flooding about twice a week after that. I haven't had time to resurface for about the last 3 weeks. It's not glass-like but it's still smooth and not chewed up either. We have a city rink a couple blocks from our house, but my wife really likes that she can tie the kids skates on right in the kitchen and send them out the back door (12 feet from the back steps to the ice)

My son loves to skate shovel, so that helps alot. During the Christmas break, I was shoveling about every 4 hours to keep up with the 2 day snowstorm. At 8 a.m on one of those days, my daughter was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife eating breakfast. She says "Doesn't Dad know he's just going to have to shovel again later?" My wife told her it would make it easier for my daughter, since she was going to be helping on the next shoveling shift that day.

Once eveything was setup, it hasn't been much work. I figured I did all of the hard work/purchasing this year. Next year will be a breeze. Did I just say that out load......

I have very fond memories of the year my parents set up an outdoor rink in our yard. I remember, as a child having a problem with my left stop, and I knew I had to fix it. One night, after popping in my cheezy Wayne Gretzky hockey drills videocassette, I became inspired. I went out to the rink, which was dark, except for the light of a single flood lamp, and I skated as hard as I could from side to side, until I had perfected the perfect power-stop with both legs. It was one of the best memories I have of hockey as a kid. Without that outdoor rink, who knows when I would have learned. As a child, you can't always get to the rink, and certainly not at 9:00 pm when your parents would rather have you inside. When it's right there, you can dedicate yourself to the learning experience. I can't think of a better way to guarantee success in youth hockey and beyond.

-Dan

This is the fourth year for our backyard rink and I am certain it will not be the last. The first year we started with a 20' x 40' kit as I heard it was hard to up keep and kind of a pain, so minimal expense, that is how it all started. The next year I built 4' high boards made of metal studs and 1/4" plywood, and also did radiuses in the corners, found a 60' x 60' tarp and voila we had a 45' x 45' rink. I have two boys, 10 and 6, and any chance they get they are out there. I try and get out there with them and we have fun. I coach them for their league teams so when we go out there on the backyard rink, I keep the verbal coaching to a minimum unless they ask. We still work on some certain skills but we do it in a fun way they don't feel they are being coached. Most of the time I sit inside watching them and see what they do and let them be kids screwing a round, having fun doing things that you wouldn't teach, like the trick moves. It is fun to watch them do that and it is amazing when they make it look so easy and then you try it and can't. They work on their small area skills which you see in the games. I cannot stress enough how valuable this is to have a backyard rink, even though we live in Bloomington which has a lot of outdoor rinks close to our house.

There is a lot of work to do a back yard rink with that all being dependent on many variables, but it is priceless to see your kids out there enjoying the outdoors in the winter, and getting exercise to boot. Every year you learn something new that makes it easier for the next year. Takes about a day or two to set up, about two days to fill, 14000 gallons of water at a cost of about $60.00, compared to the guy who will pump water in with a truck for about $700.00, and about two days to pump water out and dismantle. The rest of the time is dependent on snow fall and use. This has been the best year for ice in the four years maintaining a backyard rink, but we have also had a lot of snow to shovel. Multiply shovelings in an all day snow fall is easier to shovel. I built an ice resurfacer out of copper and I use an air hose. This fills all the grooves, scratches and gouges and leaves a small even layer of water on the whole rink. In the past 2 1/2 weeks we have used the rink everyday, without the need to resurface as the ice is so hard and all the air bubbles have been filled that there are not gouges or deep scratches. I did resurface last night as it was a nice night and in preparing for the weekend snow fall. The reason I use a air hose is I have to have 150" of hose to reach the farthest point of the rink from my water source. I am not doing a major flood so don't need the diameter of a garden hose, and it is a lot easier to coil up 150' of air hose than it is garden hose, and it hangs a lot easier on a hook in the garage.

The grass has never been damaged due to having the rink, as long as you remove as soon as possible. But actually thinking of leveling out the yard a little this year as we have 4" of water on one end and about 24" on the other. Wife thinks I am crazy, but I think a lot a people do when I tell them the process and time spent on it, but they don't see the time the boys are on the rink, the laughing, the acting of "Sid the Kid", them calling out "I'm Ovechkin".. Like I said before PRICELESS and yes I am crazy, but all of you who had a parent that did things like this when you were growing up you remember these things and appreciate it now, maybe not at the time, and you know when they have kids you hope they will do things like this for them.

I read somewhere a few years back it is not necessarily the warming temperatures that lead an outdoor sheet to it's watery demise. It is the sun's rays hitting the surface of the ice that is the compromising factor. After February 15th each year, the angle of the sun, now higher in the sky, focuses more directly and longer toward the surface of the ice.