5 Stages of Backyard Rink Grief

Here we sit, on Monday night, March 5th, knowing most of you have assumed that the season is over. You’ve been through the five stages of grief and are slowly moving towards acceptance that the ice is gone.

Life moves on and we understand you need to get back to a sense of normalcy and a meaningful life. Who can blame you? The blog has been quiet for sometime now; having gone suddenly silent after a flurry of post apocalyptic posts. It is March 5th after all. Friends and family have stopped asking about it too…no more “How’s the rink?” [Sigh]

[sigh again followed by a deep breath]

I have something I need to tell you so you’d better sit down. I don’t know how to tell this so I’m just going to say it…[anticipation builds]

The ice ISN’T gone yet. We are STILL SKATING!!!!!!!

That was so liberating, like a giant weight has been lifted. The fact is I meant to tell you sooner but so much time had passed that it just got away from me…Okay enough of the drama. Fact is last Wednesday was judgment day here. It was 50F and crazy windy – to the point that the rink cover was torn to shreds and scattered throughout the neighborhood (BTW, I owe my wife a huge thank you for cleaning it all up while I was at work. You’re the best honey!). That night I took our 13-year old to the Blackhawks-Leafs game and she helped me come to terms with what seemed to be the end of the season. Her trip to the game was our thank you for all the babysitting she did over the past six months and 109 times her sister had hockey outside of our rink.

But come Friday night we got a backyard rink miracle when 2″ of snow fell and the temps dropped over the weekend. So Sunday night our son and I hit the ice for 30 mins for a nice little shoot around session. Now admittedly its not all rainbows and unicorns. There are two bare spots in the shallow end and a hole that’s just water along the long boards but it’s still strong enough to hold me and there lots of surface left to skate on. I was skating on it briefly again this morning cleaning it up a bit and flooded it one last time tonight.

Tomorrow morning me, our son and our 11-year old are heading out for one last skate and shoot around before school…and to say goodbye. Its gonna be 54F tomorrow and won’t be below freezing for the foreseeable future and without a cover it doesn’t have a chance.

I took a video last night and will try to grab a picture in the morning. Tomorrow is March 6th; exactly 3 weeks longer than we had ice last year. After the crappy winter we had we’re still here. Its like our five year old says “We get to skate in March dad! Isn’t that awesome?!”