Everyone has a dream of his or her own.  This is no rarity.  However, very few go as far as fulfilling these dreams in their very own backyard.  One of our own Harriton students has gone to this extreme: a senior named Max Meyers.

In eighth grade, Max played ice hockey. One winter day, his parents proposed an idea: that he build his own rink.  His determination and passion for the sport pushed him to follow through with the project.  They bought wood at Home Depot for boards, a plastic tarp to hold the water, and brackets to keep the wood in place from a company in Minnesota called Nicerink.

Each year, right before the cold snap of winter, Max floods the rink with his garden hose until the water is about three to six inches deep. From there, it usually takes three to four days to freeze over, assuming the temperatures are in the high twenties to low thirties.  According to Max, “Some years, the winters are good, where I have a few weeks on the rink, and others are not so good.  For example, sophomore year, I was only able to get on the ice once.”  It all comes down to the decisions of Mother Nature.

Every year, Max likes to add something to the rink to make it even better.  “Since its inception, I’ve bought outdoor lighting, more wood to make higher boards, mini hockey nets to play games with my friends, and an ice resurfacer – almost like a walking Zamboni,” Max says.

Although it has its upsides, Max says maintaining the rink is “no easy task.”  “Once the rink is in skating condition, I have to make sure there are no bumps, which I use an ice scraper to remove. I remove leaves and tree branches that fall onto the ice, shovel snow off the ice after every skate and when there is a big snowstorm, and resurface the ice after every skate.  To resurface the ice, I have a 32 inch wide resurfacer which attaches to my garden hose and evenly spreads out the water to make the ice fresh!”

When the ice is in skating condition, Max is outside at least two hours a day, even on school days!  He gets the maximum use out of it, using it with his friends, his little brother, or just by himself.  Max describes the feeling of skating outside as “incredible.”

“While plenty of hard work and lots of time goes into the rink, it is a winter hobby that I love doing, and I take great pride in keeping the ice in pristine condition.”