Rink update Dec 9 2013

Post date: Dec 10, 2013 3:48:28 PM

T'was the night before.......2 Wednesdays ago, when the magical rink maintenance elf ( who seems to avoid being photographed....mainly because it is rather difficult to do the work needed and photograph himself doing it!).....anyway, as I was saying.....

2 weeks ago I wandered over to the rink and realized it needed some major work. massive amounts of debri from the surrounding trees had fallen on the "off" season. A well established layer of grass had taken root in the layer of leaves that has been accumulating for many years. A small tree had even come down onto the rink surface. No disrespect meant to the trees. They protect and insulate the rink from wind and that big warm thing in the sky. They are the very reason this location is so perfect.

However something needed to be done. So I set to work scraping it all off and exposing the original gravel surface that lay beneath. Reminding me of an archeological dig that exposes lost civilizations buried for centuries. Special thanks to Luke Cameron for letting me use....a bigger shovel. ;)

From that point, I have been prepping the surface by packing the snow down in advance of the first flood.

By packing the snow down to an extreme. It becomes as close to ice as you can get. The well that is onsite has enough water to resurface ice, but not much more. Further to that, it takes at least a full 24hrs before the water level in the well is back up to where it was. It has often taken 7-8 floods (days of snow free weather) to get the rink going.

So last night I (I mean the magical rink maintenance elf) cleared the snow off the rink again and.....

Bracebridge fire department (station #2) spear headed by volunteer Josh Campbell brought the water tanker out to expedite the situation, pouring 3300 gallons of water down! For the record, the rink surface starts at approximately 160ft x60ft. Thats a lot of surface area, so even with that volume of water, there is no run off. There is no water to "keep in". Thanks also to BFD volunteers Jeremy cousins, Jay Longfield and Louis Hossa for helping last night.

by Chris Varga