Backyard rinks... I was out skating on mine for the first time today

by outbutnotdown 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  outbutnotdown

  What a great thing to do. This is my first one and I have to admit it was a lot of work getting it ready, but thanks to unseasonably FREEZING temps in southern Ontario, the ice is great. The kids are just loving it. I'm just waiting for Gretzky to come up to my door to ask me if he can play.... (any Ontarians who have seen the Ford commercials here will have an inside track on that joke.

  Feel free to make comments on whether you have built a backyard rink or if you plan to in the future. I got most of my advice from this site I got from searching for "How to build a backyard rink". I will try to dig up the site for anyone interested.

  I almost didn't post this thought, because I was going to keep this post all positive, but if I was still a JW I can see bro. Elder coming to my house to counsel me on spending too much time building this rink and how my kids might actually become so good at skating that they might get approached by the NHL scouts or Skate Canada for figure skating.....AND HOW TERRIBLE THAT WOULD BE!!!!!!!!! lol..... those sick puppies

  Brad
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  Nikita

  That's cool! WHen I was a teen and into ice-skating, I always thought it would be fun to build my own back-yard rink!

  Nikita
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  Been there

  I bounced back and forth between the States and Canada growing up. From 67 to 72 we lived up there in Milgrove, Ontario just up the mountain from Hamilton. My Uncle built a back yard rink, he had 5 kids plus me. I loved skating. It was most fun in the evening with the back light on over the rink being served fresh hot chocolate standing around a barrel fire getting warm.

  I remember that it was so much nicer then having to walk the mile or so thru a farmers field to the woods so we could skate on the swamp. The swamp was where water would sit about 6 inches or a foot deep around the floor of the woods and freeze, this made miles and miles of skating area. All the neighbourhood kids would go and your only limitation would be how much snow you wanted to shovel off. The boys would play hockey and the girls would figure skate. We would stay out there for hours and hours and only come home when we were soakin wet and fingers, toes and nose were frozen numb. Those were some of the best years of my life. Thanks for the memory.
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  Hapgood

  What memories. I was born in Canada and lived in Toronto when I was a young child. My dad would build us backyard ice rinks in the winter. I was a little tike then, but I still have a vivid memory of those rinks. So much fun!!

  Hapgood
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  RAYZORBLADE

  Hell yeah! I remember those days, of a front/backyard homemade rink.

  I used to just fart about out there with my brothers and neighbours. Sometimes the older kids would play hockey and chase us kids out of the rink. We were pretty bad sometimes, and if we were miffed enough, someone would go down the road and pick up a nice solid horse turd and chuck it out on the ice with the teens: then we'd run like hell.

  Very much a lovely Canuck winter passtime. Making a rink, and worse if you lived in a yard with an incline, all the kids ended up sliding down to the bottom of the lower end of the rink, in the snowbanks.

  Loads of fun!

  There's a rink outside of my apartment (park side), and I see the kids out there playing hockey, and also on the small hill, sliding on their toboggans and sleds.

  So Canuck! Gotta love it.
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  Special K

  So is it true about your rink that you were "out (on it) but not down".. hehe

  I'm just curious, How big did you make your outdoor rink? and how?

  Do you have a site you can post on how to build one?

  thanks.. and hope your having lots of fun.

  special K
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  Sunnygal41

  BeenThere, I remember the first time my parents took us two girls skating.......we were like 3 and 5 years old..........it was an old dirt road and an old pond, more like a swamp near the woods...........but, they built a bonfire and we had a wonderful time! Then, when I was 11 years old, we were living in upstate New York in a small town, and the Lions Club made a rink for the kids in town.........built a nice warm shack to go into with a stove and hot chocolate........we did the same thing, skated til we were bone tired, fingers and feet frozen solid, then the long walk home past the LaChute River to get a shot of warm blackberry brandy or Ginger brandy and climb into bed............ahhhh, the wonderful memories of childhood!

  Terri
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  toreador

  I used to skate a little when I was younger. We did used to do quite a bit of roller skating with a group of young kids from the hall but then they started to poo poo those wild skating parties and put the kabosh on those.
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  missylissy

  ok,sorry,about,this,but,my,space,bar,isnt,working......

  when,we,were,little,the,ditch,across,the,road,would,fill,really,high......when,i,was,3,my,dad,taught,me,to,skate,there.

  again,sorry,my,spacebar,isnt,working

  -missy
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  outbutnotdown

  Special K - our rink is 21 feet wide and 33 feet long. It probably sounds small... and you're right is..... for me as an adult. But my kids love it. My second child is 6 yrs old and he and his friends can play with a goalie and two players each comfortably. It has it's advantages and disadvantages....... the advantage is that my son has, in two days, become very good at stopping and changing direction. (On a big surface the learning curve for that is much slower, with no need to stop quickly.) The bad news is that I have fallen in love with short-track speed skating, all of a sudden. I have been trying to go as fast as I can on the small surface and I think you may see me at the next Olympics for it even..... But seriously........ thanks to everybody for your replies and fond memories of backyard rinks. I'm sure that the best part for us all is the fact that we can have so much fun and positive time together with them. Kisses to everyone.

  Also, Special K, the one website that you can look up is www.backyardrink.com. The one other site I was refering to in my first comment, I have not been able to get onto recently. I'm not sure why. But you can link to other sites from the one mentioned. HAVE FUN!!!! But you can try, if you like. It is: thezone.net Have fun everybody, and make sure to miss every meeting you can, even if you DON'T have a "backyard rink".

  Brad