Postby kdukatz » Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:15 am
Ended up dealing with it the old fashioned way - shovels and sweat. When I went out Friday night after dinner to start the removal, the entire inside of the rink was covered in 6-8 inches of snow. I started out with the roof rake and pulled the snow to the boards, then shoveled it out from there. Pulling the snow across the grass was easier than trying to push a shovel across it. I was out there for about 30-45 minutes when the wife and kids came out. My 8 year old busted his butt, I've never seen him work that hard or shovel that much snow. Three times I asked him "Is this worth it?" and every time he just said "Yes" and kept shoveling. By the end even the 5 year old was into it. By 9:00 we had all the snow out and kids went in for bed. I stayed out to get the tarp out, get it in place and start patching holes. I came in about 11:30, with only about half the patchwork done. But the tarp was in place before the rain/snow started falling on Saturday.
Saturday we spent the first half of the day running back forth to the arena for hockey practices. When we were done with that, I went back out (in the drizzling rain) to finish patching. I had a lot more cuts/punctures than I anticipated, plus a two foot wide hole thanks to mice. Thankfully that hole was on the edge of the tarp so it ended up on the boards and not on the bottom of the rink.
And now it's Sunday morning and the hose is running!!!! The forecasted highs for the next 4 days are below freezing, so we should have ice to skate on by the end of the week.
My lessons learned:
1) Will never re-use a liner again. We were a little tight financially this Fall (two kids playing hockey, go figure) so I decided not to buy a new liner. New plan is to buy the next year's liner every year when we get our tax return in the Spring.
2) Get the liner in before the first snow fall.
I think this year's rink will be appreciated a little more by all of us.
"You drive by some of these rinks in the winter and there's nobody out there. It's kinda sad actually."
-Neal Broten - "Pond Hockey" documentary