My name is Bob, located in the St. Paul suburbs and this is my first year with a backyard rink. We actually have a full sized community rink a couple blocks away, but hey, you can't use that whenever you want. This 24x38 rink definitely is "for my 18 month old son" and it had to be constructed this year as "a trial run" for when he's old enough to skate.

Anyway, I built with 2'x8' boards due to a 15 inch slope. We had a nice cold snap a couple weeks ago so I thought I'd fill it. It was finally ready for a skate last Friday... when of course I got the flu. By the time I recovered we were in the middle of a rain/slush storm that ruined the nice glassy surface. After about 3 hours worth of physical labor & resurfacing earlier tonight, I think I'll finally hit the ice tomorrow night after work. The suspense is killing me.

Other than that, everything has gone surprisingly well so far. A lot of that is due to the good info available on this site. Lurking over the last six weeks definitely made the process quite a bit easier. I'll post pics after I get the netting up.

Go Bulldogs!

Welcome to the site!

My first rink, about the same size as yours IIRC, was for my "son" in the womb in 1999 so I can relate to the trial run thought process. My daughter was born a couple of months after that first rink and learned to skate in my backyard a few years later, as did the other daughter. Never did figure out where that son went to...

Hope you get to skate this weekend.

Cheers
Kevin

Was going to say, always great to see another Minnesotan around the forums here, but then I got to that "Go Bulldogs" line and thought twice. Oh well, at least it wasn't "Go Sioux", so welcome to the site Bob. ;-)

Actually a few fellow Twin Cities residents lurking around the forums. Anyway, great start to the year so far with that early cold snap. Got the rink up and ready for the first skate which would have likely been on Nov 27th if not for the fact that I broke a toe a couple of weeks earlier so riding the pine for another week with the rink taunting me outside my window. Took a couple of days of work to recover from that slush storm, but spent a couple of hours out there yesterday and today and have it ready to go again (as soon as I am).

Hope you got that first skate in last night and hopefully the first of many this year!

Magnus
Minneapolis

Thanks guys.

I've been able to hit the rink a few times now - it's so nice being able to walk out back to shoot the puck around a bit when I have 20 minutes.

Hopefully you'll be able to get out there soon Magnus. BTW, I like the other MN schools to do well when they aren't playing UMD. :)