Londonderry, NH USA
February 2005
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Rich writes: "I grew up in Randolph, Mass. In a neighborhood full of kids of all ages and plenty of ponds to clear off and use. Most of us loved pond hockey. If there was safe ice, we were playing hockey. My next door neighbor was one of the lucky ones who's dad sent him to all of the youth programs. But the whole neighborhood was even luckier, because he would teach us everything he learned the same day. We were all power skating forward and backwards with crossovers before we were ten years old. It was great back then ( 60's ). There was never a shortage of kids to do a clean up. Everyone brought a shovel with them and pitched in to keep the ice clean. 8 - 10 hour days playing hockey were not rare. Anyway, My wife and I bought a house in Londonderry NH. ( 1995 ) I wasn't to keen on going looking at houses with her during our search until she mentioned that this one bordered on a swamp. That immediately peaked my interest and we ended up buying the house. Since then I have made some minor changes to it to improve the ability of the swamp to produce clean ice during the winter months. It's about 2/3 the size of a regulation rink now and has a little hill next to it that I create tube runs on for the young ones. When it snows, I blow most of the snow from the pond up onto the hill to increase the vertical rise and to make it last longer. Over the years, I've added lights for night skating. I spend hundreds of hours per year to get ready for and maintain my ice, just so that I can skate and play hockey with my friends and their kids of all ages. It's the most fun I think I ever have had. Thanks for creating a forum for us to share our enjoyment of pond hockey." Looks great Rich. Thanks for the pics. |
Last Updated on Dec 30, 2005