The Toronto Star
ATHOME, Sunday, January 27, 2002 , p. F01

[With this winter's mild weather, a backyard skating rink is the stuff of dreams, right? Well, not for former NHLer Dave Gagner ...]
With this winter's mild weather, a backyard skating rink is the stuff of dreams, right? Well, not for former NHLer Dave Gagner

Mitch Potter
Toronto Star; Peter Power/TORONTO STAR

It's a Canadian thing, almost certain to get you in touch with your inner hoser. Even in a winter as mild as ours, there remains a heartening
handful who manage to skate circles around the weather in their own backyards.

Most aficionados of the backyard ice rink do what Canadian dads have done since the invention of duct tape: converge on the nearest patch
of yard resembling flatness at the first hint of a sustained cold snap; roll out as much cheap plastic liner as desired (6-mm vapour barrier works
nicely), border the whole mess with wood (2-by-10s if you don't like chasing pucks) and break out the garden hose.

One all-night watering session later, the only thing left to do is pray for at least two more days of nighttime lows below- 10C. Weather permitting,
you are now Walter Gretzky. Take a bow. And go get laced.

For anyone south of Timmins , all of this is easier said than done in an absolute mush of a winter memorable more for green grass than blue
ice. Yet the diehard rink builders endure, diligently flooding and re-flooding with each hopeful dip in the thermometer. And yes, northern
exposure helps.

All of this, mind you, is a moot point for Oakville ice king Dave Gagner . A former NHLer of considerable renown (his six 30-goals-or-better seasons remains a Dallas Stars record), Gagner retired from the public arena in 1999.

But ever since, he's been making a splash building private arenas. Backyard arenas, in fact, replete with fully refrigerated ice surfaces that defy the
unco-operative elements.

"Having a real rink in my backyard was a dream of mine ever since the day I first practised outdoors in Germany with the Canadian team years
ago," says Gagner, 34, a Chatham native who together with his wife Jo-Anne and children Sam, 12, Jessica, 10, and Renee, 8, settled on Lakeshore Blvd. in east Oakville after ending his 15-year NHL career.

When Gagner started looking around for someone to help make it happen, his search led him to Brendan Lenko, a mechanical engineer with
expertise in ice systems.

When the big dig was complete, Gagner was so impressed with his family's 50-by-90-foot backyard dream he bought into the company, partnering
with Lenko to form Custom Ice Rinks Ltd. of Burlington.

"We had the same vision, we got on really well, it just made sense," says Gagner. "And it's been great so far. We've been in business for two years
and it's building nicely. We're getting our costs down to something pretty affordable, at least for the smaller packages."

Affordability is relative, naturally.

Those among us who can get our heads around the $200 or so in materials for the conventional hose-and-freeze method might easily pale at the
cost of refrigeration. But if, say, an inground pool is within your range of affluence, so too might Gagner's ultimate Canadian winter luxury.

We're talking a minimum of $18,000 for a basic 20-by-30 foot rink. And higher still depending on the accessories- high boards, glass, goal nets, night lighting and a concrete pad beneath the ice for summer conversion to basketball, ball hockey or lacrosse.

Though each of the dozen backyard projects Gagner and company have completed in and around Toronto is different- it is called Custom Ice Rinks,
after all- they share the same essential technology of the modern skating surface.

"We generally start with some modest landscaping to make things level, followed by a bed of sand. We put a liner down, and follow that with our
rollout-rink piping system," explains Gagner.

The network of tubes is fitted to a high-efficiency refrigeration unit through which glycol is pumped in a continual loop sufficient to freeze the
playing surface. Just add water, as they say.

For those who want their yard back when the snow melts, Gagner has adapted his product for portability, with a requisite tear-down of the piping
system each spring. But many of his customers seem to prefer a concrete pad for summer games.

"One of the tricks to achieving this was that we developed a system that could be fed by residential power," says Gagner.

"The old-style chillers were all built for three-phase electricity common to industrial applications. We developed a single-phase unit that works in anybody's yard."

The finishing touch to perfect ice, as most rinkrats know, is hot water. So Gagner's systems also involve trenching a sub-frost hot water line into the
yard, enabling a final flood that melts down the slivers and bumps, yielding a sheet of frozen glass.

Though this particular Canadian dream lets you skate under the stars through a green Christmas, the maintenance costs leave you at nature's mercy. Expect a monthly electricity bill of anywhere from $100 to $700, depending on the size of the rink and the size of your appetite for ice during warm spells.

"This winter, the energy bills are higher for obvious reasons. But in a normal winter, there's really not much cost since the chiller operates on a
thermostat. If every day is below zero, it rests and the only power draw is the pump, which continues to circulate," says Gagner.

Ultimately, Gagner describes his own rink as "priceless."

"It's really a lifestyle. The kids are out there as much as 20 to 25 hours a week with their friends. I always know where they are."

Gagner and Lenko's firm (www.customicerinks.com) counts some interesting people among its clientele: clothier Michael Budman of Roots has a
50-by-90 footer in his backyard near Bathurst St.; also in this exclusive club, former Toronto Maple Leaf centre Tom Fergus, who together with wife
Judy decided to have "live ice" built in their Glen Abbey Estates yard.

"My original plan was just to put down a cement pad in the yard and depend on the weather like everyone else," says Fergus, who grew up
in Montreal across the street from a public outdoor rink.

"Then I heard about what Dave was doing and looked into it. We were sold. What you end up with is nice hard ice. It's like Edmonton ice, which is
a real complement in NHL circles."

With three girls and a boy, the family Fergus throws its rink open to the neigbourhood most nights, says Judy. "I grew up in Boston , so this is pretty
new for me. But it's absolutely the most amazing thing. We have a lineup of neighbours, which is just great."

Those same thrills may yet be attainable to conventional rinkbuilders if February comes with any fight in it. In the meantime, if you can't have
Gagner's dream ice, take solace in the fact that even he hasn't quite mastered the final frontier of rink perfection.

No Zamboni.

"I'm still using a hand-flooder," laughs Gagner. "It's a brush instrument attached to a hose and you just basically pull it along. But we're in the
process of developing a Zamboni-like attachment for a garden tractor. That's the next step.

Dave Gagner ,

Former NHLer who builds custom rinks

Category: Consumer Goods
Uniform subject(s): Sports and leisure
Edition: Ontario
Length: Long, 1004 words

Copyright © 2002 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

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