The Backyard Rink Years

Some families have winter traditions like skiing, sledding, or hot chocolate by the fire. I decided to build a hockey rink in the backyard, then maintain it like a full-time municipal employee with worse equipment and no union representation.

From a wooden frame in December 2013 to a refined basketball-court setup nearly a decade later, the backyard rink became its own little chapter of family life. This is the story of how it started, what it cost in sleep, and why I would absolutely do it again.

The first backyard rink went up in December 2013, back when I apparently looked at a cold New England winter and thought, 'You know what this needs? More maintenance.'

It started the way many great family traditions start: with lumber, a tarp, a hose, and the false confidence of a man who had not yet learned that the human eye is terrible at estimating slopes. I built the frame, spread the liner, braced the sides, and convinced myself I had basically created a small municipal facility. In reality, I had built a physics experiment with skates.

There is something beautiful about those early pictures. The rink is raw, imperfect, and very obviously homemade. It was also the beginning of a winter ritual that would take over my yard, my evenings, my garage, and possibly a small part of my sanity.

Then came the first flood. This is where backyard rink people learn the truth: water is honest. It does not care what you think is level. It does not care that you measured 'close enough.' It simply travels downhill and exposes every lie your lawn has ever told you.

Some corners had plenty of depth. Other spots looked like they were politely misted. That was lesson one: the yard always has a slope, and that slope is usually hiding in plain sight until you have already committed hundreds of gallons of water and most of your dignity.

Still, when it finally froze, it felt like magic. A slab of ice appeared where grass had been. The first time the kids stepped onto it, the project stopped being ridiculous and became completely worth it.

Once the puck dropped, everything else faded. The cold, the bracing, the hose work, the tarp wrinkles, the borderline obsessive weather watching, all of it suddenly made sense. There is no drive to the rink. No locker room. No schedule. Just skates, sticks, a net, and a backyard that had become the best sheet in town, at least according to the highly biased rink owner.

Over the years, the rink got bigger. It got better. It got more elaborate. Boards improved. Netting appeared. Targets went up. Lights appeared. Christmas lights, bright LED lights under the tarp, color-changing lights, because apparently I looked at an outdoor hockey rink and thought it needed a production budget.

The dog enjoyed it too, mostly drinking the melted ice. Every great arena needs a concessions department. Mine had one furry employee and no health code compliance.

At some point, the backyard rink stopped being a rink and became a statement. The posts went higher. The nets got serious. The lighting got better. The whole thing began looking less like a temporary winter hobby and more like I was waiting for NESN to call about broadcast rights.

The Christmas lights were not necessary, which is exactly why they mattered. They made the rink feel alive at night. The colored LEDs bouncing off the ice made the whole backyard glow. It was part hockey rink, part holiday display, part evidence that I should not be allowed near extension cords after Thanksgiving.

And then there were the late nights. Watering after everyone went inside. Checking the surface. Listening to the hose. Watching steam rise in the cold. Hoping the temperature would drop just enough to turn the mess into glass before morning.

Nobody tells you that once you build a backyard rink, you are not really the owner. You are the caretaker. The rink owns you. A perfect sheet of ice is temporary. Snow falls. Leaves blow in. Kids skate. Dogs wander. Temperatures swing. One warm afternoon can undo three cold nights of work.

I had a homemade Zamboni setup, because of course I did. A resurfacer is one of those things that sounds absurd until you have dragged a hose across rough ice at 11:30 p.m. while questioning every life choice that led you there.

There were super cold nights when I would put warmer water on the frozen surface and hear the ice fracture underneath me. It sounded like the rink was cracking its knuckles. Science was involved. Not always successfully, but involved.

Later, after moving into my childhood home, the rink evolved again. This time there was a basketball court, which felt like cheating. No more wooden frame across the lawn. Just put down the tarp, add water, and let winter do the rest. In theory, this was easier.

In practice, I learned that even a court has slope, and slope remains undefeated. But the setup was cleaner, the surface was bigger, and the backyard had the feel of a proper little winter complex. Basketball hoops at one end, hockey nets at the other, snowbanks around the edges, and enough ice to keep the kids moving.

Those later rinks were probably the best ones. The process had been refined. The mistakes were more sophisticated. That is growth.

The real reason for all of it was simple: my kids. Backyard hockey gave them ice time without a car ride. It turned winter nights into something we looked forward to. It made the yard a place to skate, shoot, laugh, fall, get back up, and do it again.

The rink was work, but it was also a chapter. A cold, wet, exhausting, beautiful chapter. Blood, sweat, and tears is usually a figure of speech. With a backyard rink, it is more of a maintenance log.

By 2022, both kids had left for college, and one had moved more toward lacrosse. The rink had done its job. It had given us years of memories, bruises, goals, frozen toes, and late-night light bouncing off the ice.

I miss the rink. I miss looking out the window and seeing a sheet of ice in the yard. I miss the sound of skates cutting across it. I miss the lights. I miss the kids playing. I miss the ridiculous pride of creating something that had no business existing behind a house.

What I do not miss is being the keeper of the surface. I do not miss snow removal in the dark. I do not miss hoses that freeze if you look at them wrong. I do not miss weather apps deciding my mood. I do not miss trying to convince myself that midnight flooding was a normal adult activity.

These days, I am perfectly happy spending cold winter nights inside, watching hockey like a civilized person. But for almost a decade, from that first wooden frame in December 2013 to the final season in 2022, the backyard rink was part of who we were as a family. It was absurd, exhausting, and perfect. And yes, if the kids were little again, I would probably build it all over tomorrow. I would just pretend I had learned something about slopes.

A backyard rink is not really yours. You are just the caretaker, for one cold season at a time.