Proulx - Backyard ice rink: a step-by-step guide for building your own hockey rink at home

Backyard Ice Rink

Copyright 2016 by

Joe Proulx

Forword copyright 2016 by

Brian Falla

A Hollan Publishing, Inc. Concept

All rights reserved

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ISBN: 978-1-581-57299-5 (pbk.)

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DEDICATION

To my dad, the best unpaid employee money can buy. Our November weeks together are something I will forever cherish.

To RJ, Reese, and Ryder, for laughing loud enough while you skate that the rink gods hear and keep it cold. Thanks for keeping the secret from mom that I only build the rink for you guys.

And to Meaghan, for holding down the fort and fully supporting me while I live out my childish dreams and act on my impulses. And for insisting that any house we buy have a spot for a rink.

by Brian Falla

Every year of my childhood, when the first breaths of winter reached our New England home, my heart began to swell. Our backyard rink was my familys beloved cold weather companion, warming our souls, pulling in friends, and knitting us closer together.

It sounds like hyperbole to suggest that this structure of plywood, plastic, and ice was treated as a living, breathing relation, but it was very much a branch on our family tree. Its birth each winter was met with much anticipation and joy; its death each spring mourned with great sorrow. We discussed its health volubly at the dinner table. We inspected the newest ten-day forecast as if it were a loved ones EKG readings. The rink connected us in ways that otherwise seemed impossible.

When my father originally built the rink in 1981, he did so largely to create a place for my sister and me to skate. In his mind, the rink provided available ice when the ponds were either covered in snow or otherwise rendered unskateable. But in all our lives, the rinks ultimate role far surpassed merely giving us a place to skate.

For my dad, who wrote a popular book about backyard hockey called Home Ice, it became a great connector not only to his kids, but also to friends and family who would flock to the rink every winter. As the years went on and his own ice time diminished, the rinks role in his life expanded. It suddenly became a lens through which to view his children growing up.

The rink was probably our familys sole shared passion, and it was unquestionably the place we spent the bulk of our time together. When winter unleashed its wrath and buried us in mounds of white, the four of us would trudge out with our shovelsbecause my father had Luddite tendencies, we did not own a snow blower until into well into the 2000sand begin merrily clearing the ice.

As I grew into a diffident teen and the conversational landscape with my parents became more barren, the rink became our safe haven: a place where we could talk about lifes problems, no matter how difficult.

Looking back, my most cherished memories were not the weekend all-day pick-up games or the parties but the moments with family.

A few months after my father died, I spent a night clearing a recent snowfall and resurfacing the rink with the garden hose. Orion twinkled on my right wing, the Sea of Tranquility on my left. The only sounds were the soft trickle of the water as it spread across the ice and an occasional bass note from an expansion crack. Looking up at the sky, I imagined my father gazing down and smiling. I wiped a tear off my cheek.

If you ever happen upon a backyard rink person whistling down the street at the prospect of an early arctic blast, or mourning over a spring thaw, please be aware: they are not insane.

They are just in love.

Standing for the first time on the first backyard rink that I had built as an adult, I took a mental snapshot and tried to breathe in the experience. It was Christmas morning. In my arms I held my two-year-old firstborn son, his Bauer-clad feet swinging wildly on the ice. My dad stood rinkside, his smile as big and proud as it must have been twenty-five years earlier. My wife took photos from the deck, finally understanding why her crazy husband had talked her into buying all that wood and giant liner.

I took a deep breath and exhaled. We had a rink in our backyard, and the most important people in my world were enjoying it.

Itll be hard, the naysayers warned. Youll need to shovel all the snow, they said. Its expensive! they cautioned. I knew. But I didnt care. All I knew was that putting a rink in our yard would be amazing and memorable, and already in those first five minutes on Christmas morning in 2008, I was right. We were a backyard rink family.

Its been nearly seven years since that day, and in that time the rink has been as big a part of our family as any living, breathing member. Its hosted large weekend skating parties and solo stress-relief sessions under the stars. Perhaps most importantly, all three of my children have experienced the holy-cow-Im-doing-it excitement that comes with their first unassisted steps on frozen water. All on our little backyard rink.

Along the way I started writing about my rink experiences on www.backyard-hockey.com. What started as a blog to host pictures of my kids skating has grown to become one of the most popular outdoor-hockey websites in the world. We now have a growing message-board area where both new and veteran rink builders can share ideas and ask questions, and pictures of smiling kids clad in skates and helmets reinforce the community approach weve strived to build.

In 2011, emboldened by several years of rink lessons learned, my wife and I launched Elite Backyard Rinks, a New Hampshirebased company that builds backyard rinks for people who may not necessarily have the time or desire to build one themselves. In our four seasons of existence, weve built more than eighty backyard rinks of all shapes and sizes, helping to bring the awesomeness of backyard rinks to families across New Hampshire and Massachusetts.