Building a hockey rink with Pallets

[YooperHockeydad]

Hello, I am new to the backyard hockey rink world. I live up in the upper peninsula of Michigan, Marquette. Last year I built a rink just using the pack and flood method and when warm spells came I lost all or most of my rink.
This year I am going to use a liner, but my budget isn't allowing much for boards. I have picked up 65 pallets for the rink which is going to be 75x 40. I plan on slapping scraps of OSB onto the pallets so when I lay the liner the pressure of the water during the fill once rip the liner as it try's to press through the gaps on the pallets.
Can any see anything wrong with this method, or has anyone tried this before. Just looking for some tips.

[kevmac]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with building a rink out of pallets - especially if you are trying to be cost-effective (I'm Scottish it runs in my blood). I'll point you to my blog [url](http://rink-kevmac.blogspot.ca/2010/11/ ... -2005.html) where[/url] where you can actually see that you are following exactly in my footsteps.

Make sure you bolt (or screw) your pallets together and properly brace them on the backside. Once you start replacing the pallets with plywood boards, the pallets make for great bonfires! :-)

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Good luck and keep us posted.
-kevmac

[YooperHockeydad]

Thanks Kevmac for your response,
I am running two, 16 foot deck board along the entire back of the pallet and then putting plywood on the outside. After reading your blog, by the way your a phenomenal writer, did you ever have any tears when you used the pallets from the water pressing through the gaps during the flooding stage.
I appreciate your insight as I also have one daughter whom I may be putting skates on this year in hopes that she enjoys skating as much as I do.

Scott

[kevmac]

With two young kids in the diapers at the time, my ability to convince my wife that I needed to spend money on a backyard rink was not a top priority. In other words, I cheaped out on everything. Boards were pallets, I hunted down one of those thick blue tarps from the US and had it shipped to Ogdensburg to save on shipping and used chicken wire around the top of the boards to contain the pucks. The blue tarp held up great and if my memory serves me correctly (and it doesn't), I don't recall many tears. The other thing I might add (not sure if I did in the blog or not) is that even though I had a tarp I still used the packed-snow method so that may have helped me avoid any potential tears during a fill.

Thanks for the kind words about being a "phenomenal writer". My sister who studied journalism in college would surely laugh out loud upon reading that about her brother who studied physics! :-)

Cheers
Kevin