Our House

DOMINION LENDING CENTRES OUR HOUSE WINTER 2018 17 ISTOCK ROMANCING FOUNDATION I s there anything more Canadian than lacing up the skates and hitting the backyard ice in the middle of winter? As the season gets into full swing, if you haven't set up your backyard altar to the hockey gods, or are new to the idea, you might be surprised to hear that it's not all that hard or expensive to set up a backyard rink. Ultimate Outdoor Rink has been helping people build backyard rinks around the country for 25 years. As company founder Brian Young explains, these days it's all about getting the kids oŽ the computer and in the backyard for fresh air and exercise. "It's an iconic Canadian thing," he tells Our House magazine, adding that without fail the hockey pros point to the backyard rink as their intro- duction to the game. "It's who we are. It's what we do. It's pretty special." If you do plan to turn your backyard into the next Forum or Maple Leaf Gardens, Young has a few pointers to get started. First, there are typically two ways to build a rink. One is to build It's easy to build an ice surface in your own backyard | By JEREMY DEUTSCH RINK the your ice on a snow base, which can take a lot of time and eŽort to get the surface right. The second is to build a wood frame, put down a plastic liner, fill it with water and let Mother Nature take care of the rest. It's the latter that Ultimate Outdoor Rink, based in Stratford, Ont., specializes in. Young suggests buying the wood frame at a local lumber store to save on shipping costs. With the liner costing about 10 cents a square foot, and the average backyard rink coming in at 50 by 30 feet in size, a decent rink can be built for less than the cost of a good pair of skates. That said, the bigger and more elaborate the rink, the more expensive it will be. Young also notes that each backyard site is diŽerent. It's important to check your slope; a one per cent grade in the average backyard will drop you six inches over the length of the surface. "A lot of people misjudge their slope," Young says. While figuring out grades may sound complicated just to skate on something that happens naturally on a pond, Young insists it's not actually that hard to do. There are plenty of videos on YouTube to help you out, including do-it- yourself-videos produced by Ultimate Outdoor Rink for its customers. Though the backyard-rink industry is a niche product, Young's company is smoking busy in the fall, sending out orders right across Canada. There is no shortage of demand for the outdoor expe- rience. "The more experiences you can give your children at any age, the more able they are to handle life as they mature, and one of those experiences is a backyard rink," he says. Countless hockey stars point to a backyard rink as their introduction to the game, notes Brian Young of Ultimate Outdoor Rink. Just be wary of any slope on your property.

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