Josh Allen had always wanted to try ice skating. “It looked like something fun to do that was good exercise,” he said.
There is a public ice skating rink in East Aurora, N.Y., where he lives. “But I was too embarrassed to go out and slip and slide like Bambi,” said Mr. Allen, who is a prison guard and correction officer. “So I figured, ‘What a better place to start than my own backyard?’” He decided to build his own private rink.
Across the United States people have invested in the ultimate winter amenity: personal ice skating rinks. They range in extravagance. While some people are crossing their fingers for subfreezing temperatures and then dripping water over backyard patios, others are spending five and six figures to erect professional-level rinks with chillers that can be used in warmer weather.
Comprehensive data on how many people have built such a convenience was not available, but one Facebook group has more than 57,000 members who share tips and advice for backyard ice rinks.
A Tarp, Some Lumber and a Garden Hose
The first challenge for Mr. Allen was conquering his tilted yard. He bought a laser level that he used to flatten his yard.
He then bought a 25-by-45-inch tarp from Amazon and draped it over a wood frame he assembled from pieces of lumber. When temperatures finally dipped below freezing, just after New Year’s, he filled up the frame with a garden hose and waited for the water to harden.
Mr. Allen, 34, even fashioned a homemade Zamboni out of a PVC pipe and towel. “I pump hot water from my garage into the pipe. The hot water drips onto the ice and the towel mops it and smooths it out,” he said. “You have to get it as smooth as glass before it hardens again.” (He estimates he has spent less than $800 for supplies and water bills.)
Maintaining his rink, which is 20 feet by 40 feet, hasn’t been easy, especially with this winter’s unpredictable weather. “The first time I made it I was only able to skate twice before we had a warm snap, and the rink melted,” he said. One day strong winds threw leaves onto the rink, meaning he had to melt the ice to clean it out. Another day, it snowed so much he had to shovel the rink multiple times.
An Easy-to-Assemble Kit
Four winters ago, when her sons were playing ice hockey, Jenn Rogers and her family built an ice-skating rink in the backyard of their home in Braintree, just outside Boston.
Ms. Rogers, 45, who owns a jewelry business, said they have always used a kit bought off the internet. They are currently on their fourth backyard rink. The first three winters they had a 20 by 40 foot rink made by one company and this year, she spent $12,000 for a 30-by-60-foot rink made by a different one, which was she said was easier to assemble. “It took my husband and son less than two hours to build it this year,” she said. (Last year, the family redesigned their backyard and created a level area where the rink can go. During other seasons, the frame sits there empty.)
Each winter brings a new touch to the rink. “It’s gotten a little crazy,” said Ms. Rogers. “This year we put LED rope lighting under the rink to create a center ice line, the red and blue lines, as well as a center circle for the face-off circle.” She bought the rope lighting from Amazon in different colors and assembled it underneath the rink liner using landscape staples. “It’s easy until you run into rock,” she said laughing.
Her sons are 9 and 10 now, and Ms. Rogers said she loves that their friends are over all the time to skate. “We have an outdoor kitchen with a banquette that we use in the summer by the pool, so now we keep that out during the winter,” she said, noting the outdoor kitchen was designed to be used in all seasons.
The family is tempted to buy a chiller, which costs at least six-figures and is what public and professional rinks use to have ice even when it’s warmer.
A Tractor and Their Very Own Zamboni
Anne Deplazes, 43, a stay-at-home mother with five children between the ages of 3 and 13, and her husband, Steve, used to wake up at 5 a.m. to drive their sons an hour to Minneapolis from their home in New Richmond, Wis., so they could get more practice time for ice hockey. But the family had plenty of room — five acres of land — to set up a rink and still have ample space to do other backyard activities including sledding.
“Our city rink in town has only one sheet of ice, which is not enough for the 250-plus skaters in the city,” she said of New Richmond, Wis.
In 2022, she and her husband built a backyard rink from scratch by creating a frame out of wood boards, and then filling up the middle area with sprinklers. “When we get cold weather my husband goes out with a hose,” she said. “Sometimes he is out from midnight to 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. just spraying the rink to build up the ice.”
Over the years, they have accumulated items that give it a professional feel. The family snagged an old scoreboard from a city rink, and asked a friend who is an electrician to fix it. Another friend gave them old hockey nets that keep the pucks on the rink. They bought a Zamboni from a private seller in Minneapolis and a tractor to attach it to and drag it around the ice. “The tractor and Zamboni take up my parking spot in the garage,” said Ms. Deplazes, laughing. “Priorities.”
At 65 by 95 feet, the Deplazes rink isn’t quite up to the standard 200-by-85-foot professional rinks of the National Hockey League. Still, it has become a de facto practice rink for about 50 local players. Ms. Deplazes invites her children’s teams to come over and practice once or twice a week. “Their coaches don’t even have to be there,” she said. “These kids just get together and play, and they perform so much better at games.”
They even built a warming hut alongside the rink. “I put out a big thing of hot chocolate and hot dogs and cookies,” said Ms. Deplazes. “We also have a pizza maker and an air fryer down there.”
She estimates the family has spent $25,000 on the rink so far, and this year, they weren’t able to use their rink until after New Year’s because temperatures were too warm. “We talked about getting a cooling system, but we would need to put a roof over it,” and she added that it would probably cost around $200,000. “Maybe we would do that in the future, but I don’t know. The kid turning 6 soon is also super into hockey so it might be worth it.”
‘Almost Euphoric’
Moving south would not mean missing out on a wintertime tradition, said Jeff Senatore, 32, who lives in Lebanon, Tenn., about 30 minutes outside of Nashville. “I grew up in the Poconos, and we would skate on ponds and lakes and things like that,” he said of his Pennsylvania childhood. “If anybody knew of a nearby pond that was frozen, we would all just grab our skates and go.”
He has figured out a way to replicate that spontaneity.
This winter, when the weather got very cold, he used a regular garden nozzle to spray water on top of his concrete patio, a 15-by-25-foot space that usually serves as a pool deck. “I switch the nozzle to the shower mist setting and lay the water down in fine strokes back and forth. The water is so thin that way that it almost instantly freezes when it’s cold,” he said. “It is how I figured out I can skate the quickest in the least amount of time.”
His process creates one-half to three-fourth inches of water, enough ice that he can grab his skates and play around on it, but not enough ice that it needs any type of frame to contain it. “This is as natural as it comes,” he said.
Like Mr. Allen in New York, Mr. Senatore also found a way to refinish the ice by creating a makeshift Zamboni. He uses a big Christmas storage bin. “I put it on a dolly and poke holes in it and then pour hot water into it so the water goes onto the ice,” he said. “A towel then drags behind it to smooth it out. It produces a glass finish.”
The only cost of the rink is an extra $10 to $20 a month for his water bill, he said.
He can only use the rink as long as temperatures stay freezing — a tall order in a southern state. But even getting the chance to skate once or twice a year in Tennessee is a treat, Mr. Senatore said.
“The nostalgia and the draw of playing outdoors in my own backyard,” he said, “it’s almost euphoric.”
The post Let’s Go Ice Skating. In the Backyard. appeared first on New York Times.
