I'm hopefully building my first backyard rink this upcoming season. I have seen loads of pictures of varieties of rinks. This being my first year I'd like to get the system down and eventually upgrade board systems and things. My first question is this. What happens to the plastic if it is simply laid inside and folded up and over the boards? I'm assuming pucks and sticks and skates can damage it pretty good.

I like the look of having the wood boards right into the ice with the plastic underneath and wrapped up the backside of the boards. Does anyone have any experience with this and how does it work with bracing? I'm thinking I can wrap the plastic up the back and use some 2x4 store bought stakes and screw them from the inside of the rink with the plastic being between the boards and the stake.

I'm in the planning stages of this right now so any advice will be helpful.

Dan

The liner should always, always, always go up on the INSIDE of the boards. Yes, pucks and sticks and skates and shovels will ding it...but it's ok because it's north of the waterline should you get a thaw, and it's advisable (by darn near everyone, myself included) to get a new liner each year. Too much can go wrong from March to December to try to re-use, so bake a new liner into your budget now. Break it out monthly if need be (and, of course, leverage your friendly Elite Backyard Rinks owner...which would be me). :)

If you like the cleaner look, you can purchase kickplates, or make them yourself. Lots of ideas and pictures out there. You won't see much on backyard-hockey.com about kickplates, though, because I'm not a huge fan. I'm going to cut up and throw away my liner at the end of each season, so I've never spent the time protecting it. I have friends who have installed nice white plastic kickplates (hey, look, EBR sells those too!) and they look great. But just not something I've bothered doing.

I have a guy up here in NH whose rink I observed back in March. He had a terrible season because the carpenter he hired tried the "liner on the outside of the boards" thing, much like you described....and it was a massive failure. Way too much pressure on the liner, and he was plagued with leaks and rips. This year he's paying us to install a full Nicerink setup for him.