Early Season Backyard Rink Tip

Slush~Snow on an unfrozen or thin iced rink-All is not lost! The BEST thing to do is nothing? If you have just filled your rink and it froze over with 6″ of ice or less and you get a big snow storm, the weight of the snow on the ice will force the ice downward, and the underlying water will be forced by pressure from the weight of the snow up between the liner and the ice, turning the snow into slush on top of the skating surface. If your ice is too thin to get on and clean it off, you basically can do nothing.

The best scenario is for the weight of the snow to push the ice down enough to force enough water onto the top of the ice so ALL the snow turns to slush. Let the slush freeze, and then you can skate on that base if it’s smooth enough or resurface a few times to get it back to smooth.

If it snows on ice that is already pretty thick, 5″+ and the slush is only around the edges of your rink, then you can tackle cleaning it off. Personally, I would call “more than a few friends” over to help with this.

Once you start cleaning slush off of a rink DON’T STOP, it must all be cleaned off and smooth. Whatever you leave on the ice, such as left over slush, or stopping half way will freeze at night and your ice will be full of FROZEN footprints, shovel marks or the line where you stopped. Once it’s cleaned off, let the surface harden back up, and then use a NiceIce resurfacer as needed to get it back to glass.