Reader Photos: Joe Peca

Surrounded by towns with names like Sellersville, Harleysville, and Ambler, the town of Lansdale, Pennsylvania isn’t likely to be first to mind when discussing hockey hotbeds. But for the family and friends of Lansdale resident Joe Peca, that doesn’t matter. Joe sent in pictures of his backyard rink and accompanied them with his favorite memories. Daily skates in December, practices with teammates, parent/kid games, and figure skating competitions? That’s what this is all about. You can’t find another activity that binds family and friends like a backyard rink does.

Wanted to submit photos below of our backyard rink in Lansdale, PA. Been doing this since 2002. We changed it over on 12/18 and have been skating on it every day since 12/26 including the last few days with temps down here hitting close to 50 deg F each day. Trick is to skate from about 8AM to noon. Then sweep off the ice shavings, flood it and let it freeze the rest of the day and all night. This is the earliest we have ever had going due to low temps since early December. Hoping for another 2 months of use.

The first year we had the rink in use (Jan 2002), our daughter and her girlfriends had figure skating competitions on weekend nights when they would have a sleepover party at our house.

Then 3 years ago my son and I had our Middle School teams that we coach in our local school district over on a few Saturday evenings for practices along with their parents. My son coaches the A team and I coach the B team. We had a fire going on the porch for the non-skating parents. Everyone else was skating. We had a brief practice followed by a parent/coaches vs kids game.

The last 2 years since I resumed my men’s league career, I have enjoyed coming home from work on weeknights and skating/stickhandling/shooting on the rink on my own and with teammates. Saturday mornings and afternoons in January/February are great times to spend hours playing hockey.

I couldn’t agree more. Thanks to Joe for his submission. Have a backyard rink photo to share? Send it in along with your favorite backyard rink memories. Details here.

6 thoughts on “Reader Photos: Joe Peca

  1. Tim

    This is excellent! I live in the same general area as Joe P. and I thought a rink was possible in this area, too. I have not built one yet, but have had a big bucket of water sitting outside as a test. And my observations match Joe’s. We could have been skating for a month in the area just north of Philadelphia, PA. Now I have the confidence to go ahead a do it next year. I too am an adult league player, but want to build the rink so my grandson can experience outdoor skating and hockey.

  2. T.R. Moreau

    When you built the ice, did you build it inch by inch or put down 4 inches and let the whole amount freeze? I live in Douglassville and just laid the border.

  3. Joe Proulx Post author

    Tim – always lay down the entire ice surface first. Laying ice in layers is difficult because when you go to lay the second layer, the relatively warm water bores a hole in your ice and tries to push the first layer up. This can damage your liner. Best to fill all at once.

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