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Northeast Philadelphia man’s backyard ice rink is a labor of love maintained over “a lot of sleepless nights”

By Ross DiMattei

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    PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (KYW) — A family in Philadelphia’s Fox Chase neighborhood is making the most of the chilly weather. They’ve converted their backyard into an ice skating rink, and it’s now in its 10th year running.

“I originally started 10 years ago. I had one of those blow-up pools,” said David Bara, the builder of the rink and a father of three. “I was cutting it to throw it out in the trash. I got to the bottom, I realized it was a bowl that I could fill with water and freeze, and with a house full of kids who play hockey, I said, ‘Why not? Why not give it a shot?’ And now it’s kind of expanded into this thing we have here today, which is pretty special.”

Bara’s backyard rink has come a long way since its days as a cut-up plastic pool. Today, it measures 20 feet by 48 feet, and it sits on a custom liner surrounded by plastic boards covered with actual advertisements.

Every year, Bara looks forward to when the temperature drops low enough to pour water on the rink and let it freeze over. It takes him many hours to build and freeze the ice that measures several inches thick and many more hours to maintain it.

“The maintenance is definitely where the hours come in. A lot of sleepless nights, up every two hours building this so that the kids, and not only my kids but kids in the community, can skate: my friends, family, which is really the reason for the rink,” Bara said.

The amount of time spent on this labor of love is difficult to quantify. “It’s not for, you know, just my family. It’s for everybody. But a lot, I mean, countless hours. I couldn’t even throw out a number to where I thought it was realistic, that many hours,” Bara added.

Backyard ice rinks are not nearly as common in the Delaware Valley as they are in New England and the Midwest. But that may be changing, thanks to a movement led by builders like Bara.

He runs a Facebook group called “Backyard Ice Rinks,” which encourages its 35,000-plus members to seek and share advice on how to build backyard rinks like his.

“The Facebook page is a great resource for anybody who’s looking to start a rink, maintain a rink. There’s no problems that you can have that one of us across the country, and there’s people actually around the world that are on that page, that couldn’t answer your question in a really positive way,” Bara said.

Bara says his goal is to help others build and achieve the rink of their dreams so they can make the kind of memories he and his family have enjoyed over the years.

“That’s what it’s about. It’s about giving back and letting people in Philadelphia who would never have this opportunity have a chance to skate outside,” Bara said.

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