Boards are up (mostly) and first skate

 Thanks to the boys coming by on a warm Tuesday night, the end boards went up with only slight difficulties.  A couple of days later, the kids too to the rink for a few hours of bliss and exercise.  Good times.

 Over Christmas it rained... Yes, rain.  In Northern Ontario at the end of December.  Combine that with snow and the entire city was a disaster. 

 The kind of snow where you have no problem paying the local pre-teens to come out and shovel for $5/hour.

 I had enough fun with doing the driveway that I decided to hold off on the rink.  I recall back to the  year prior where I attempted to clean the rink off after such a weather predicament...  It wasn't pretty.  So this year I vowed to let everything harden, then clean it off.... Unfortunately, the weather has since dipped into the -30C category - too cold to do anything.

 New Years afternoon I'm going to attempt to snowblow the rink and get a couple of floods down - in an attempt to get it semi-smooth for a friendly skate over the weekend.  

 Will see how that goes....

 

On Frozen Pond

 I wanted cold, and we sure got it.  Past week of  -10C days and -30C nights...  The ice is solid alright - but it's been too cold to put up the boards...

 Maybe next week when it warms up a bit.

 Boy, rink owners are a fussy bunch.

Time to Flood

 Temperatures FINALLY dropping to a decent -8 to -15c at night... Got a bit of snow last night. Figured this was my chance to get the rink going (finally).  I snowplowed the 5" of snow out of the rink and put the liner down... Started flooding at approx 1:30pm today... So far, so good...

5C and...

Not falling very quickly.  In fact, it'll be into December before the nights will be cold enough for me to even begin thinking about flooding.

 The other day I was outside doing yardwork in shorts and a t-shirt.

 It's the end of November.

 Gah.

2009-2010 Edition

 It was a beautiful +10C type of day on Saturday, so I put up the main framework for the rink... Only took about an hour and a half and it was complete.  I still have to drive a few 2x4 stakes down along the 2x12s for added support... Probably do that today.

 I've been having difficulties with Home Depot and the liner I've been buying every year.  Seems like the first time I called them (I've been visiting the store every 3 or 4 days to see if they've come in) they stated they weren't carrying them anymore.    Then I called Jay in the Soo to check his store - voila.  They had 9.  I called our store back and, "Oh yes, we just don't have any and we don't know if we're going to get any" was the tale I was told this time.

 Jay has offered to pick me up one in the Soo and throw it on the Greyhound to get to me.

Grr.

 Of course, it's still way above zero here... barely gets below 0 at night yet.   Crappy summer, but it's carrying over to the fall.

... the season begins anew

It's almost October... That means soon comes the cold of November and the snow of December.

On the flip side, I was on kijiji and someone was selling a rink rake (an official NHL licenced one!) for $10. I bought it. Turns out the seller was someone else who works in my company, just in a different office. Small town.

Hockey draft is this week.

I'm thinking about installing a sillcock this year. (Go google it Laura, you'll see) Hot water is the bomb, but running a hose from the kitchen sucks - especially when you have to leave the door open when its -40.

It's all about making life easier.

Is this the end?

The coming of spring often times brings about major changes in ones life. There's some personal upheaval atm, which I'm not going to write about - but I will discuss the ice situation.

Recently we've had some very warm weather (+5C) and some snowfall, which has left the rink pitted and bumpy.

I think we may have seen the last "skate" of the year last week. It's still great for boothockey though, so that'll be ongoing for another couple of weeks I'm sure.... And after the snow is gone the long arduous task of dismantling the rink for another year.

Et le but!

Et le but!
Originally uploaded by Big Swede Guy

The 2nd "Annual" Hockey Day in Canada was held on my rink this past Saturday. We had 9 participants for the 3 on 3 boot hockey game - people subbed off as they needed to replenish their drink, or, in the case of Jeff, catch their breath.

It was a perfect day. Jay and I spent about an hour clearing the snow from the rink. I would have loved to have flooded it the night before (to provide that EXTRA slipperiness), but alas, it was snowing.

We had a firepit goin' on the side to warm up by... although with the temperature a balmy -5C it was a gorgeous day.

Festivities started around 2, and carried on until after 5 when dinner was served. The day ended with a few of the guys watching UFC 94.

I forgot to get ideas on a rink name... Will have to work on that.

All in all, a great day!

Nothin' Goin On

Yup, that's right... Not much going on lately with the rink. Between severe cold (read -40C with windchills), a major snow dump (over 3'), the holiday's and one kid with broncitus, not much has happened with the rink.

In fact, there's still 2' of snow sitting on it atm.... I finally got around to snowblowing out the driveway/pathways etc etc the other day...

We're still around. Rink is still there.


We're just a bit frozen atm.