My '2014 Rink'

[NEOH ICE]

At long last, I finally got around to putting up some pictographic eveidence of the 2014 rink. It has been an incredible year for ice in Northeast Ohio thus far and it looks like it will keep going for a while longer yet as well.

Our first skate was 12/13. And midway through February, we have already surpassed the total ice time we had in all of 2013.

I did make a few upgrades this season. For starters, its' bigger (of course). I also went with the preformed boards and brackets this season after throwing out most of the OSB I used last year. The radiused corners are nice for sure.

At any rate, here are a few pics. Hail, Hail to Polar Vortex...



This one is from around Christmas;


From the parent section ...


And my personal favorite, under the lights...


I hope everyone else is enjoying their season as much as we are. 12 inches of water in the deep side of our rink and it is frozen all the way thru to the ground. Its' been a great winter.

[CoachJim33]

Sweet! What's the labs GAA??? I think the nice rink stuff looks awesome. It holds up well??
Congrats and hope the season continues to be great!

[NEOH ICE]

Lol. We have a standing rule that the 'dog is not a goalie'. But she does play pretty good defense. Mostly, she likes to steal the puck and run away with it.

The rink has held up much better, thus far, than the OSB and stakes that I used to build last season. They bowed out as the season went along and no matter what I did, there was no getting it back. Thus far, the plastic boards have been rock solid.

[Joe]

Looks amazing! The major selling point of the NR stuff is its durability...it'll get dinged and dented if you shoot hard enough, but it'll never warp or break, and you'll be able to sell it when you're done with it.

[mtbhk44]

This rink is fantastic. You did a really great job. Lots of room to skate out there too

[soupy01833]

looks great. I bought some of those mats at HD they work great and are super strong.

[NEOH ICE]

Thanks fellas. Season 2 has gone much better than season 1, though season 1 was a success too, just more work. I couldn't have done it without the information found on this forum.

It's plenty big enough for my daughter and I, which are the primary skaters most days. Mom skates too and we have a few friends who come by on weekends to skate. But for the most part it's me and my baby girl out there (and the dogs). She loves to skate and is benefitting greatly from having a rink out back that she can skate on any time she wants. She has come a long way this winter alone, with her skating and her puck skills as well.

And then the old man likes tossing a few brews in the snow bank on Friday nights and leaning into a few pucks. It's good for the head.

Next year, I need to fashion up some sort of backstop though. While the slapshot still has a little whistle to it, it ain't always very accurate. There are more than a few pucks that likely won't be found until the lawn mower hits them next spring...

Cheers.