Boulder Hockey Club

It’s that time of year when a few hearty souls start to think about skating. I’m not talking about getting in the car and heading down to Boulder Valley Ice (although that’s good too!). I’m talking about unrolling the plastic, breaking out the hose and flooding the backyard with many of gallons of water. Then it’s just a matter of hoping and praying for cold (freezing cold) weather.

There are at least four of our Boulder families that I know of that are members of this club: the Spicers, the O’Rourkes, the McGowans (with friends) and the Hebdas. This winter will mark my family’s third season with a rink. I’d thought about putting a rink in for a few years, but what finally put me over the top two years ago was a friend loaning me the book Home Ice by the late Jack Fella. Fella, a former hockey writer for Sports Illustrated and author of several books, writes about the backyard rink that his family enjoyed for many years in Massachusetts.

The most important consideration for a home rink is some level ground. If this area is shaded it’s even better. After that you need to find a way to contain the water. In my case I use some wood stakes that I drive into the ground to hold up some boards on one side of the rink and I use the fence on the other side. After that it’s just a matter of laying out the plastic and filling up the “pool”. For the last couple of years the cold weather has blown in around the beginning of December and it lasts until early February. Of course there are no guarantees here.

There’s nothing quite like turning on the floodlights and playing a little shinny into the night in your own backyard. The term “hoser” comes from the tradition of the losing team having to hose down the rink at the end of the night. For some reason it seems like dad is always the hoser, but it’s almost as much fun resurfacing the ice back to a new glass-like sheet as it is carving it up with your skates in the first place.

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