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When Brendon Hardy was a boy, winter days weren’t measured in hours.
They were measured in laps around the rink, shots on net and how long your toes could take the cold before you finally went home.
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“I’ve got three brothers,” he said in an interview with 650 CKOM. “When I was growing up, it was insane and crazy the whole time.”
When the house got too loud and his parents’ patience ran thin, there was a simple solution: “Mom and dad would just be like, ‘Just go to the rink!’”
Hardy remembers pulling on skates and disappearing into the cold for what felt like entire days at a time.
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“We’d get out there with our skates, and we’d play out there for, you know, eight, nine hours a day,” he recalled fondly.
Now, he’s passing on those long, magical winter days to his own kids — and anyone else who is tempted to lace up.
It may be simple, but it’s the stuff Saskatchewan childhood dreams are made of. A place to skate, slide and just be a kid. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
Hardy lives in Sunset Estates, a small community about 11 kilometres east of Saskatoon. It’s a close-knit neighbourhood, full of kids who roam freely from yard to yard.
Last summer, Hardy noticed how naturally they gathered at his place. A backyard pool became the unofficial meeting spot, and before long, it felt like everyone ended up there.
“That was kind of the inspiration for doing the rink,” Hardy said, “so that they all had somewhere to be in the winter time as well.”
There was another source of inspiration for this project: the loss of the community’s outdoor rink.
“We used to have a rink, but with the highway expansion, basically they had to get rid of it because it was too close to where they were going to be expanding the highway,” he explained. “So there wasn’t a whole lot other than the park for the kids to play at this winter.”
Seeing the space vanish and knowing the kids needed somewhere to skate, Hardy decided to take matters into his own hands.
An unwanted shed on Hardy’s brother’s property has become a warm-up shack for the kids of Sunset Estates to enjoy, complete with a space heater and hot chocolate bar. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
Never having built a rink before, he spent hours researching online, watching videos and asking coworkers at the Nutrien Cory Potash Mine for tips. “Apparently, it’s a ton [of work], and I didn’t realize that before,” he admitted with a laugh.
He learned quickly that building a backyard rink is a lesson in patience. “I basically just froze the ground, layer by layer, until I got it built up enough to skate on,” he said. “It’s been about a month and a half worth of flooding just layer by layer, and getting it all perfectly smooth.”
Looking back, Hardy admits he could have saved himself some effort if he’d taken a tip from his coworkers and used a liner. “Next year, or following years, when I build a rink, I’ll definitely be grabbing a liner,” he said. A lesson learned, but one that doesn’t diminish the pride of building it from scratch.
When Hardy’s brother mentioned he was getting rid of a shed, this determined dad saw an opportunity to add another layer of comfort and fun to the backyard rink.
He hauled it home and started turning it into a warm-up shack. Inside, there will be a small hot chocolate bar, a place for kids to warm their hands and take a break before heading back out.
Five-year-old Jackson Hardy shows off his dad’s homemade Zamboni. The contraption made of black pipe and cloth is hooked up to the family’s hot water tap to smooth the ice. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
A neighbour who works at a rink gave him a piece of professional ice-smoothing material, and Hardy fashioned a homemade Zamboni from black pipe, planning to hook it up to his hot water tap to smooth the ice.
It’s backyard ingenuity, powered by community.
The work hasn’t been his alone. Hardy says most of the building has been done with his oldest son Brantley, with his two younger boys pitching in too.
“My daughter has been great help as well,” he said — pride clear in his voice.
For the kids, the result is pure magic.
“It’s a first time experience, and it’s fun,” 13-year-old Brantley said with a smile. “Very fun to skate on.”
Asked what he likes about it, his answer was simple and perfect: “It’s a skating rink. It’s fun! We like to skate around and slide.”
The rink takes up nearly all of Hardy’s backyard, a sacrifice he and his wife are happy to make to ensure the kids in their community have a place to play. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
The Hardy family’s backyard rink is more than a patch of ice in Sunset Estates.
It’s where kids burn off energy until their cheeks are red and their toes are numb.
Where the good ol’ days are playing out, without anyone quite realizing it yet.
Years from now, Hardy’s kids won’t remember how long it took their dad to flood the rink, the mistakes he made along the way or how many frustrating late nights he spent smoothing the ice.
They’ll remember the feeling of being told to go outside, being given a place to play and joyfully losing track of time on the ice.
And that’s exactly why he built it.
In the wake of the destruction of their community’s outdoor rink, Brendon Hardy built a backyard rink at his home in Sunset Estates. His children Jackson, Sadie, Cohen and Brantley were all a huge help to their dad throughout the project. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
