Lifelong memories

[Yooper]

Growing up we had a rink in our backyard for 3 or 4 years. It wasn't big or fancy, but it did the trick and we could skate at any time. The neighborhood kids were at my house every night to skate. One night one of the kids broke a window. Now this window was 10 feet high and that puck had no business being up there. My Dad was a bit intimidating and the general discussion was who was going to go inside and tell him. To this day, I still don't know how I got roped into going inside. The kids that were skating were bantams on my Dad's team and since I was a squirt, I drew the short end of the stick. As expected, it hit the fan.

For the past few weeks that we have been flooding, I have been bouncing ideas off of him and we have had some great talks. Any time a back yard rink comes up the words "Remember the time Joe Pigeon broke the window" always gets discussed and both of my parents have talked about it since the rink has gone in. These days I work as a pharmacist for a large big box chain about two hours from where I grew up. I see people from my hometown every day. Yesterday, one of the bantams that was there the night the window was broken was in the store. I hadn't seen him in 3 or 4 years and I told him we had built a rink in the neighbors yard. The next words our of his mouth? "Remember the night Joe Pigeon broke the window?" I know this post is long and rambling, but what I am trying to say is that these things that happen on the rink in the backyard today, are going to be remembered for a lifetime. This happened 30 years ago and it is still talked about with laughter (now anyways, then not so much.) Every time that someone skates on your rink you should think, "Will tonight be the night that they talk about in 30 years?" Take it from a second generation rink builder. What you are doing is greater than you can ever imagine. Thanks for listening. I am going to check the ice.

Dave

[Joe]

That is great, great stuff Dave. My kids are still young (5 years, twin 8 month olds), but even with my oldest, I wonder at what point we're going to experience something that will live forever.

I didn't have a backyard rink growing up, but one of my fondest outdoor hockey memories was during one of those all-day pond hockey marathons everyone has experienced at one time or another. None of us wanted to take off our skates to go and get food from our friend's house up the street. We played and played and played, and knowing what I know now, we were probably all in a pretty serious caloric deficit. Then one of the guys' moms showed up with a pan of this peanut butter chocolate fudge and we absolutely devoured it. I don't remember who won or lost or how old I was when this all went down, but to this day, whenever I see peanut butter and fudge layered in the same pan, I remember six of us, sweaty and exhausted and silent, stuffing our faces with the greatest food ever invented.

[kdukatz]

Warning, this is a little long...

Until I was 9 years old, there was an outdoor rink across the street from our house. And I mean literally across the street. It was in a park, appropriately named Circle Park. The street around circle park was a single lane, one-way (counter clock-wise) street. We were one of the houses on that street. There was a baseball field, a large play area with swings/slides/etc. and an outdoor rink. The rink was directly across from our driveway and frontyard. My parents living room window was a box seat to the rink. There was also a small area on the other side of the rink that was flooded for non-hockey skating.

One year, a nosy, self-absorbed woman who didn't live "on the circle" as we used to say, decided the small open skating area wasn't good enough for her figure skating kids and actually got the city to put a "No Hockey Allowed" sign on the boarded hockey rink! Still makes me mad. My parents had one of the larger lots on the circle, and there was a large, low area next to the driveway that tended to collect a lot of water. We had an unusually wet Fall that year, so my brother (7 years older than me) decided it wouldn't take much time with the hose to flood it even more and get a decent enough surface to skate on so the neighborhood kids could keep playing hockey. Well, he did better than decent with the ice, and ended up with a better surface than the hockey rink in the park. Of course this didn't go unnoticed by the nosy, self-absorbed woman. One day my brother got off the bus from school and there next to our "rink", on our property was another "No Hockey Allowed" sign! The sign was gone before dinner and we were playing hockey that night while you-know-who was skating with her kids on the rink in the park. No one from the city ever approached us or contacted my parents.

My brother, nearing 50 and with a hockey playing son of his own, has that "No Hockey Allowed" sign hanging over his basement toilet.

[Matt]

awesome stories. i've been a lifelong hockey fan, but a late bloomer on the skates. i moved from mild winter southern indiana to frigid winter northern indiana about 14 years ago. quickly became friends with some friends of friends from college. one of these friend's dad had a pond built in their backyard exclusively for hockey. he is a total hockey nut. is always showing us old skates and pictures from his high school days when team won the ft wayne city championship. owns about six dozens sticks. three sets of goalie gear. and has a mis-mash assortment of skates. is always trying to talk neighborhood kids into coming and playing with us. id have to credit him and his son with turning my passion of hockey into overdrive. we play every weekend that weather allows, and i have to drive 30 minutes to get there. theres usually 15-20 of us out there, ages 10 to fifty something. all day long extravaganzas. hockey, lunch, hockey, beer, dinner, more hockey. my wife knows that i'll be camping there all weekend when its cold out. they are without a doubt some of the nicest people i know who do whatever they can to spread this sickness known as hockey.

got married a year ago last fall and talked my wife into letting me use some lowe's gift cards from our wedding gifts to buy some lumber and built my first backyard rink last winter. just something to goof off on during the week. a few people from the neighborhood stopped and asked if they could bring their kids over. even the old guy across the street from us who complained all summer cause our house parties jammed the street with cars asked if he could come over and skate on it. i got home from work one day and he was out there, wearing skates that i know were older than my 34 years, stickhandling a smashed pop can. he told me thanks, i told him we'd try and keep the partying to a minimum....... i've already had a few neighborhood kids ask me when i'm gonna put it up this year. its not huge (35X75) but its perfect to stick handle on all evening and my wife loves to just spin around a bit. there is nothing i enjoy more than coming home from a stressfull day at work and lacing up some skates.

i know without a doubt if we move that our next house better have a pond, or a level yard. i will always have a backyard rink.

[Chris]

I wish I had a fantastic story like these to tell!
Mine can be supremely dramatized to go from childhood disappointment to 'a tale of woe and broken dreams, not to be kept down with a fighting spirit and achieved childhood happiness in adulthood' if I were to spin it that way. But in reality it was a pretty simple (if very long) tale.
Due to high cost, awful practice times, and a kids indecisiveness my parents never let me play hockey when I was young on a team but I always loved to play on ponds. There was a pond down the street outside a happy old mans house where everyone used to skate all the time. Then he had to move away and the people who bought the house quickly put up no trespassing signs and kicked us all off the pond. My parents yard had nowhere even close enough to make our own rink, but my cousins house had a decent spot. They built a rink for a year or 2 then stopped due to lack of interest (which was killing me!) When I was old enough to drive I started always going to ponds to play but having to clear off a big spot to skate by yourself or with one or 2 friends always made you tired, and THEN everyone else from the area shows up and destroys the ice you worked so hard to clear off. This form of disappointment went on for a few years with a few good times and alot of wasted time. Then everyone was 'too old' (in their early 20's) to bother. UNTIL!! A friend of mine informed me about the New Englad Pond Hockey Classis in its first year coming up and they needed an extra guy and would I like to be said 'guy'. OF COURSE! So off I went with a group of people I didnt know to compete in a pond hockey tournament and we did a great job in the Just for fun division. Just after the tournament, a new friend of mine came over and saw that I had been in the tournament and asked if I wanted to play in some pickup games when him and his buddies rented ice time in salem. Wow, from nothing to everything in a few weeks time! Now I build a rink in my backyard for whoever wants to use it (pretty much me) and LOVE it. I play on a mens league team in the granite state hockey league and have my pond hockey team the manchester jets. I went from wanting so bad to play hockey all the time, to playing hockey year round and loving every second of it needing to make up for lost time in my short 27 years!

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my hockey version of a life story. I didnt realize it would take that long! (I got caught up in the moment there!)