Backyard rink builders taking advantage of cooler temperatures

Backyard rink season in Edmonton Many people are building backyard rinks this year to maintain physical distance. Carlyle Fiset has the story.

EDMONTON — It’s a winter project that many have been trying to master for years: the backyard hockey rink.

"I'll go with obsession, yeah,” said veteran rink-builder Grant Gordon. “It's kind of taken on a life of its own in the last 11 years."

And Gordon, who says it takes two weeks to prepare a rink before a drop of water even hits the surface, seems to have found his groove.

"I get almost as much out of it as the boys do skating on it,” he told CTV News. Gordon believes there’s a business opportunity in rink-building but that may come once he retires from his day job.

Which brings us to the rink-in-a-kit option.

Jordan Chorneyko owns Edmonton-based Dad’s Rink Kit, a business idea conceived about 15 years ago but only recently revisited because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It didn’t take long for people to warm up to the idea of a do-it-yourself backyard rink.

"Then all of a sudden we sell 10. Well, let's see if we can sell 20. And then you sell 30 and you're going, 'Holy crap,'" laughed Jordan’s father, Roy Chorneyko.

With cooler temperatures on the horizon, and more people looking for a safe way to spend time outdoors, it appears backyard rink projects are on the rise.

Any way you ice it.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Carlyle Fiset