She's a bitch! Last night, we squeezed in one last skate before the weather was turning to crap (again) in Ottawa (so much for the All-Star weekend festivities on the canal).

It started to snow last night around 11pm and was supposed to turn to freezing rain (again) over night. It dropped about 3-4 inches of snow and proceeded to ice rain the rest of the morning; creating yet another mess of snow, ice and slush on everything. They were calling for the rain to stop by early afternoon and seeing as though I 'worked from home' today, I decided to clear the rink over lunch (and it took me the full hour). Once cleared, it kept raining and raining and raining... filling my backyard pool (mental note: I need to waterproof my boots). Now as I look out the window at 2:15 - which I like to call early afternoon (you know when precipitation was supposed to stop), THE biggest snowflakes are now falling... landing on all that standing water now sitting on my ice. This is going to glorious as it is supposed to drop to -7'C (19'F) overnight...

In short, and I know that the majority of people here will agree with me, I hate Mother Nature... she's a royal ________ (insert favourite word here)

yeah she's been a bear lately. rink froze late, skated for a few days, melted and stayed that way for a week, refroze with snow and made a mess, spent a few days fixing it to skate for another day and a half, only to have it melt again this week and now its supposed to snow this weekend and maybe freeze again. maybe February will be different but i somehow doubt it

I feel your pain. My son was able to skate for one hour last week. I could of bought a sheet of ice cheaper at the local rink for one hour of skating. If by some miracle we get to skate on it again, great! But I've given up the dream of getting any type of regular use out of it this year...

Its been a crummy winter for sure.

Ive been going for early morning or night skates whenever possible because almost everyday its covered in water...on the plus side at least i havent had to do much resurfacing haha it fills in all the marks by melting everyday!
someday.....someday...

I agree !!! Mother nature has not been on my good side this year go figure this is my first year putting up boards,netting, bought new nets , a full set of goalie gear in anticipation for this winter!!! Had some weekend 3 on 3 mini tourney's planned!! But it looks like I wont't get even one skate in this year, temps for next week here in southeast Michigan are supposed to be a palmy 46 degrees . So friggin frustrating!!!

Chicago! The last of my ice should be gone tomorrow. We skated as much as we could for the week or so that we had ice. Now it will take a miracle to get it frozen again. Still it was worth it to see my kids skating and having fun. Keep your stick on the ice!
Dave

Yesterday was another 8-10cm (3-4in) of snow to be followed by more freezing rain... (Aside: What is with all the freezing rain this year?!). I watched the Sens blow a 2 goal lead to the Bruins (screw you Joe) and decided that I would clear the rink of all the snow before the rain hit. It took me an hour to shovel the snow off the rink (kids were in bed so couldn't use the snowthrower) at which point the sky was still clear. I immediately went inside checked the weather; the temperature was -7'C/20'F but still calling for freezing rain. Screw it - I'm going for a skate. Grab some pucks, one of my new SE16s and off to the ice... skated and shot pucks for a good half-hour at which point the freezing drizzle started coming down.

She may be a bitch but at least she took an hour off last night for me to get in a skate... just wish it was earlier so that the kids could have scored some ice time too. Hopefully this weekend... fingers crossed.

yeah it was 50f here today so my rink had a nice coating of water on top...i just threw my pond hockey net on and shot a few pucks on foot this morning before it all melted just to get a bit of use out of it during one of the many melting phases. Also had to work on hitting those small holes for this weekend at the nephc!

Either she is a member of the Backyard-Hockey forums or she has forgiven me and blessed us with some fantastic upcoming weather. Take a look at this forecast!! All is forgiven - well except for that blip on Monday but we'll get through this together - and just in time for Winterlude in the nation's Capital. Outdoor hockey has already been set up for Saturday night.