Pond Care
- Thread starter Grasshopperking
- Start date
wow!!! good size rink and awesome to see you have the place to play. as for care, your idea sounds good, but i would suggest putting a hole in an area off of the playing surface. getting the whole surface covered with a layer of water will help, keeping the water depth as low as possible to keep from getting any hollow spots in the ice.
if you have a pump, can hook up a garden hose, and the temp is low enough, spraying the rink with a nozzle will help,too. start at one end of the surface and go back and forth over the whole thing until the whole surface has just enough water to cover the rough spot. it might take a few times to do this, and you might have to work on certain areas of the surface one at a time, but eventually, it will get smooth again.
i would also suggest building a rink rake and doing the ice maintenence frequently so the surface doesnt get to a crappy point in the future.
yer quite welcome!! it's all trial and error. one thing i would like to add: if you use a pump, drain the pump of water after use. water expands as it freezes and it could brak the impeller housing ( i found out the hard way a long time ago).
here's a few helpful links
http://www.hpurchase.com/byrtips.htm
http://www.backyardrink.com/backyardrinks_tools.html this one shows the concept of a rink rake.
there is a lot of info on the web for rink care and tips. different google searches will help. starting with pond rink care or backyard rink care will get ya goin in the right direction
Last edited:
HowToHockey
Registered User
I played on a pond every winter as a kid. We never had a pump but we still managed to keep the ice nice and smooth. Here are some tips
I think that it. The most useful tip from that list is the slush in the pressure crack trick, it works like a charm!
- For safety reasons first find out if there are any weak spots in the pond. Our rink had an area that the water flowed in so the one corner always had thin ice.
- Make the water hole near the side of the pond, or a corner, that way if you fall in the water won't be too deep!
- Keep the snow off the rink as much as you can, sometimes the snowbanks will melt and flood the ice a bit, but if the snow melts on the ice it's really bumpy
- Don't take too much water out from under the ice because it will take away support and give you a lot of pressure cracks
- when you get pressure cracks just use a bit of water mixed with snow, fill the crack in with the slush, then smooth it over with a hockey puck and don't skate in the crack for about 30 minutes, it will be frozen over in no time!
- Clear the ice off after skating on it to remove and ice chips and snow caused by your skates
- On really sunny days it seems the sun will melt any snow and ice chips and sometimes will help harden the ice
- For flooding the ice we just used a bucket. We made a hole in the ice, then every time we skated we would open the hole again ( so it didn't freeze completely over) it was also cool because sometimes animals would come to drink from it
) - If you fall through the ice, turn your stick so it catches you on the ice. If you go all the way in and can't get out then hold onto your stick so a friend can grab it and pull you out. This never happened on my pond, but it was always our plan
I did go through to my knees the odd time though - It's annoying to lose pucks into the snow banks, we would splash water on the snow banks to harden them so the pucks wouldn't go in.
I think that it. The most useful tip from that list is the slush in the pressure crack trick, it works like a charm!
Mosetter27
Registered User
I have nevre in 18 yeras of playing hockey Both ice and roller never skated on a pond... i 've been too afraid to fall in...
i cant blame ya there! no ice is safe ice. whenever i played on a pond or lake, i made sure the water depth was less than 4'. i will never skate, or even go on, a frozen river.
