Building a Backyard Ice Skating Rink
When I was a small child living in Toronto, Canada, my parents flooded an area of our backyard during the cold months to create a small ice skating rink for our family of 6. I was tiny child at the time, and just starting to skate, but I remember my sisters and I learning to skate by pushing kitchen chairs around the skating rink. I think the chairs had wheels attached, but I need to check that fact with my sisters. My youngest sister was a baby at the time and I remember my mother pushing her around the ice in a portable crib. I can't remember if the crib had ice blades or wheels, but do remember it had short metal legs.
Have any of you built your own backyard ice skating rink? Can you share any instructions or tips?
Did you build it from a kit or did you design it yourself and purchase your own materials?
Comments
Well here where I am living, in past when weather has been in very cold conditions.
They have very shallow pond filling with water.
So maybe you should make a very simple wood beam construction and some plastic sheets to keep water. And let nature do the restπ
From The Netherlands
My dad used to do this too.
I remember he put tarps down and made a wall of snow all the way round .
He'd pour boiling water in places in the corners and sides... don't know why but I assume to make the tarp freeze to the snow walls because boiling water freezes faster.
Then he'd flood the area. He'd come pour boiling water on it every few days which we all thought was magic cuz it would be smooth like glass immediately
I got my Hogwarts letterπ with my magical flying rollerskates!π§ββοΈβΈοΈ
I used to build one every winter, but the winters aren't as cold as they used to be. (I live in Missouri) I used vinyl fencing slats (6 inches by 16 ft.) for the sides. I staked them down and then covered it with a vinyl sheet and clamped it to the sides with spring clamps. Mine was 16' x 48', but you could make any size you want. It worked really well, and I would leave the sides up to use each year.
When I was a kid in 80`s we were used to build a skating rink at soccer pitch near my house every winter. We just moved the excess of snow from the field and built approximately 20 cm walls made of snow around the rink to keep the water inside. The challenging point was the water supply as the soccer pitch was 60m x 30m, huge water consumption, and therefore special arrangements were necessary. Well, nothing can stop the kids from having a fun… The father of my classmate was a fireman and has a firehose in his garage. There was always a couple of days of arrangements in advance on how to take the hose without his knowledge to use it for filling the rink from hydrant. That was a fun! Worked perfectly at the time.