St. John's, Newfoundland Canada
January 2003
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Don writes: "I am a father of three boys, Timothy age 8, Matthew age 10 and David age 14. They all love to watch Hockey Night In Canada and they enjoy going to see the St. John's Maple Leafs play at Mile One Stadium. For the previous two years, the two youngest boys had been taking skating lessons and they wanted to start playing hockey. I wanted them to learn how to skate before they started playing hockey, so last year on a vacant lot beside our house, I tried to build a skating rink. I packed the snow down and flooded it and had some success in building a rink, but they only got to skate and play hockey on it a few times before the weather got warm and the rain washed it away. There were no boards and they were always looking in the snow for the hockey puck, so they wanted me to try and build a better rink the next winter. I told that I would try and build them a better rink next year. We live in a new area of St. John's where a lot of new houses are being built. In the summer time the young boys in the neighborhood picked up scraps of wood from the new houses being built and built a club house on a treed vacant lot. At the end of the summer, they were told that they had to tear it down because a house was going to be built on the lot. There was a lot of wood from the club house so I took the wood and thought that I could use it to make a backyard rink. I had originally planned to build it on the vacant lot beside our house, but when they started to put a house on it the beginning of December, plans were changed and it was decided to build the rink in our back yard. The weather has cooperated in St. John's this year and using the wood from the club house, built a rink ( 24 feet by 48 feet) with boards all around. The boards are about 18 inches high on the sides and four feet on the ends. Plastic was purchased to make a liner and the rink was flooded and it is now ready to skate on and play hockey. Matthew and Timothy really enjoy playing hockey on there backyard rink with their friends." Great job Don. Thanks for the pic. |
Last Updated on Feb 16, 2003