Backyard Rink

Love seeing these rinks you guys do every year and the kids enjoying it. Keep it up guys!

Started my winter workout regimen.

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Not me Joe. Rink is done.
We are not playing in the prior one Biggill but every hockey parent I talk to can’t believe I have ice in back yard.

My son was ice fishing the other night on 5.5″ so it has definitely been cold enough to make ice if you got started in time. THis warmup wont help, but its cool enough at night but it does look like there will be a few nights where it doesnt get below freezing.

CaptainMusky wrote:

THis warmup wont help

Its supposed to be near 60 degrees tomorrow. Record warmth for December. Not great for making or maintaining ice.

Yeah, that isnt good for sure Gim. I dont think we will get that warm here, but I think upper 40’s.

Keep in mind we only have 8-9 hours of total daylight right now. The sun is the biggest enemy.

Mid 40’s only occurs for a couple hours during the day. It will be unskatable today thru Friday but the weekend will be good to go.

^^^yup

Its supposed to be near 60 degrees tomorrow. Record warmth for December. Not great for making or maintaining ice.

Are you in Nebraska?

The warm weather made it easier to sink a couple more posts into the ground for a backstop net. Win/win.

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Mine should be delivered tomorrow. I got the day off. How did you attaché the lower portion along the boards.

I was gifted the net and the foam caps. I just hung the net over the boards a little bit and put the foam caps on top.

I actually wasn’t planning on attaching it to the boards tonight because I’ve been overthinking for a couple weeks now. I’m gonna go with this for now and see if it works.

If this doesn’t work I was just going to screw some 2x2s or 1x4s to sandwich it between the boards.

So far so good on the net. I added some ratchet straps and some ground anchors to keep the posts upright and the net tight. Net held nice and tight. Now I need another one for the other end.

I’ve us in mid season form right now. Probably won’t be able to skate Thursday-Sunday though. We just need those lows to get into the 20s most nights.

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Yeah we skated last night. My rink took a little beating with the last warm stretch but good to go with a little water. Pretty sure I am the only outdoor ice in town.

That crazy. I dug horseradish in my yard Saturday and not a mm of frost.

What a night to skate. Ice is perfect. Weather was perfect. My 7 year old and 9 year old neighbor went 5 hours after school. They went hard too. Finally could get out and skate with them. Watched my 7 year old beat the neighbor kid on a break away and then pull it between his legs to score. I laughed so hard but that is what outdoor ice is all about.
Nets showed up tonight so will mess with those tomorrow. Fresh zam tonight hope it don’t get to warm tomorrow.

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Rink looks great, love the flag. I hope you blast a Celine Dion O Canada before they skate every night

Your rink looks amazing Rip!

The other end is the US flag. Kind of a little bubble hockey theme.

Give them the Carl Lewis rendition of The Star Spangled Banner

I can probably pull that off over the Celine O’Canada.

Thanks Capt.

I’m not too optimistic about skating tonight. I don’t see the temps falling below freezing until Monday morning. This weather isn’t expected to ruin anything but we just won’t be able to skate. Next week looks nice, hopefully the forecast holds true.

The long range for January says that we should see much more normal temperatures. Hopefully that holds true as well.

It’s been a really strange season so far considering how warm it’s been. The nights that we’ve been able to skate have been spectacular and there’s been more than expected. In any given normal winter, we don’t skate some nights for various reasons. Snow, cold, wind, rain, warm. A lot of people keep warning me they the “super El Niño” is going to make it a terrible skating season. I keep telling them that the warm days only offset the cold days. In reality, we could actually have more days to skate than a normal year because there’s likely to be more mild nights rather than being -25.

However, El Niño years tend to have an earlier spring so this early good ice is really making for another great winter.

Been out everyday since Monday. Fresh Zam tonight. Green grass and a rink is just weird to me. Drive by outdoor city rink and there were people still playing pickle ball.

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We’ve finally been able to get some other kids over to skate on the rink this week. The kids are still getting twice as much ice time at home than they are with their teams.

I haven’t resurfaced since before the last warmup. The mild days have been melting the snow on top just enough to leave a smooth enough surface. I’m estimating that I have at least 7″+ of ice out there. Still have some water under the ice around about 1/2 the rink.

Looking at the next 6 days, its gonna be pretty bad. Lows a couple nights look to be in the 40s. It’ll survive but it might not be until next Friday until we can skate again. I was really hoping christmas break would have some skatable ice.

I have next week off so I might look at hitting up superior for a day next week with the kids if the wind is good.

nice looking rinks fellas. the warm stretch really took a toll on the ice on my pond. Basically melted down to slush and is now freezing back up.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Drive by outdoor city rink and there were people still playing pickle ball.

There was a group of about 6 people on the one near my house playing roller hockey out there yesterday afternoon!

You guys must be up nort aways cause there is still boats on the river by my house.

Nope metro for me.

@mwodziak, Based on some of the guys shots at men’s league last night, your new net might not be high enough…
DT