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“It started with a tiny little skate surface and it grew from there.”
Buffalo Pound Lake resident Dakota Kuntz and his son Trip have gained national attention for their outdoor rink design called “The Rink of Dreams.”
The facility sits on the southwest end of Buffalo Pound near Loney’s Point. Dakota says the rink was built to fill a void in the area for local residents to come out and play hockey.
“There isn’t an outdoor rink out here yet, so we just decided to put one on the lake,” says Dakota. “We needed some areas to warm up so we built an ice hut, then a mini-stick rink, a GT track, and then it started growing. It’s wild.”
The two also built an ice trail halfway down from their house to the rink, so people can literally skate right down onto the surface.
To clean the ice surface, the rink is equipped with its own Zamboni, which is a golf cart with a water trailer behind it to flood the rink. The Rink of Dreams also has its own boards that the two made out of snow to give it that authentic feeling.
Dakota moved to Buffalo Pound Lake at a young age and created so many childhood memories that he wants to pass on to his son, Trip.
“This rink means everything to me,” he adds. “It means every single day that we get on to the ice memories are made and that’s where dreams come from. Being close to my son and playing the sport that we both love every single day that we can is so special.”
For Trip, having an outdoor rink in his backyard has been very beneficial to him in his hockey career, allowing him to be on the ice every day. Trip is a goaltender for the Moose Jaw U13 AA Warriors.
“I’ve improved quite a bit. My dad does help me, as we do a lot of drills like hand-eye co-ordination, rebound control, and helping me with my blocker and glove,” Trip says with a smile on his face. “It does help me in the game a lot.”
Trip has also got some help from current NHL goalie and Saskatoon product Connor Ingram, who visited him in the summer.
“That was pretty cool. It was cool to have a veteran goaltender teach you how to be better as a goalie and it has helped,” Trip said.
Ingram is a goalie for the Arizona Coyotes and has played 20 games this season.
Trip and his teammates have used the outdoor rink multiple times throughout the season outside of their scheduled ice times.
“We had a team-building exercise out here,” he says. “We had a game going on with two goalies and did some shooting around and we had some fun.”
With the U13 AA Warriors this season, Trip is sporting a 6-6 record with two shutouts and an .879 save percentage.
Trip says it’s really enjoyable to have his outdoor rink, but explains he and his dad put in a lot of work every day to make sure the facility is in tip-top shape.
“Every day we will have to shovel, and then once a week we will flood the rink, then after the flood, we will let it sit for a day and let it freeze,” he says. “After it freezes, we will come out and do some goalie drills and sometimes I’ll shoot as a player for a bit.”
The father-son duo has created a lot of buzz about their rink on social media and their videos and pictures have grabbed the attention of the likes of Bardown and TSN.
Imagine having this ODR in your backyard.
(
: dakotakuntz7 / TT) pic.twitter.com/nNOz9tUsog
— BarDown (@BarDown) January 30, 2023
Dakota says it all started with the two just having fun and didn’t think it was going to blow up as it has.
“I really do like to take pictures and videos to remember all the things that we do and it just started going crazy and getting more and more attention,” he says.
“The best way for kids to be seen in the hockey world is to showcase on social media and that’s a really good tool to use and we went for it.”
As of Tuesday, their TikTok page has more than 26,000 followers and their videos have more than 640,000 likes.
Their rink is just the beginning of a long list of plans the two have for the area. They plan to build a covered outdoor rink in the community to play hockey year-round and incorporate basketball nets as well.
“We want to make sure that everyone from every different age group is having fun with different sports and make sure the community is coming together to meet one another and build it as well,” Dakota says.
Dakota concluded by putting a call out to the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors, saying the rink is always open for them to come out and enjoy.