Take Winter, Add Water, Then Smooth
Pucks Fly Across Homemade Backyard Ice Arena
By Cara DeGette
The boys, reports Debbie Keenan, have been skating and playing ice hockey throughout the holidays. This is thanks to her husband Jason, who combined some ingenuity with a little patience, water and Jack Frost, to build an ice rink in their Park Hill backyard.
Keenan explains: “We live on 18th between Dahlia and Elm. We are right by Park Hill School, where our first grader and kindergartner go. This is our first time building a rink. We just moved to Colorado six months ago from Georgia. We had a swimming pool in our backyard in Atlanta – it kept our boys occupied and helped to wear out some of their energy. We didn’t know how we were going to manage keeping them happy and outdoors during cold weather here. I guess that’s what inspired it. That and my husband’s upbringing in Canada. Skating outside is a big deal.
“My husband, Jason, built the rink in our backyard during that cold snap a little more than a month ago. He read up on the Internet and talked to friends for info. His dad in Canada had some ideas, as this is a family tradition. Jason grew up skating a little piece of ice just like this.
“Jason stayed up late and got up early to put a layer of water on every few hours. This went on for several days. He nearly gave up on it. It needed a layer or two of snow, and didn’t hold or smooth out right away. He piled snow up as borders, and evened it out. He decided to buy a huge sheet of plastic to line it, but he found it worked better without it. Where the sun hit in the backyard it melted off one corner, so he cut the rink in half. Now it is more of a square, and the sun doesn’t really hit it. The Saturday after Christmas two inches of snow fell. With a light mist from the hose it smoothed out. Now it’s just a little maintenance here and there.
“Our young boys play hockey and skate in the DU Learn to Skate and Hockey Program. One of their schoolmates has been by to play goalie. We’ve also had some of the other kids in the neighborhood play on the ice, but most of them don’t have their own skates.
“I’m an aerialist so we also have aerial silk fabric hanging from our backyard tree. It’s a regular circus/hockey extravaganza back here.
“My husband used to play hockey professionally. Hockey is a big part of our lives … we are a skating family. It’s taken about five or six weeks altogether to make it skate-worthy. We plan to keep it up until it melts; and apparently that could be a very long time.”