Growing up in Monroeville, Matt Sargo fell in love with ice hockey after his neighbor, a Buffalo, N.Y. transplant on a mission to spread the sport’s good word, built a small rink in his backyard.
“He came here with a plan,” said Sargo, a hockey coach who now lives in Manor. “He was like, look: I want to teach you guys ice hockey.”
To fully freeze over, outdoor ice rinks need several straight days of temperatures below 20 degrees.
They get plenty of use in infamously cold Buffalo.
In Pittsburgh, a particular brand of devoted — and handy — hockey fans endure the cost and constant maintenance that comes with a backyard rink to seize on one, maybe two, weeks of ideal conditions.
Sargo, who has erected a rink of his own five years running, fits the bill. In the winter, his backyard is known as “Brandywine Gardens,” a mash-up of his street name and the home of the Boston Bruins, TD Garden.
“I will say, a resounding amount of coaches will ask me how to build it, and it’s the easiest thing to build in the world,” he said. “But it’s a labor of love to keep it going throughout the winter.”
Sargo coaches a Penn-Trafford travel team and the Allegheny Badgers of the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League (PAHL), in addition to his work at Sargo Hockey Academy in Delmont.
He tries to make sure his teams get to enjoy the backyard rink at least once a winter. The parents, surely seeking a break from the “go-go” youth sports lifestyle, often huddle by a nearby fire and indulge in a beer or two.
The night before one of these get-togethers, Sargo will wake up every hour and a half to spray a fresh coat of water on the ice.
By his next alarm, the surface will have frozen over again.
All this work — and Sargo’s rink is only 18 feet by 24 feet.
In Indiana Township, Ken Kieffer has built a 2,700-square-foot rink. That’s about a sixth of the size of the National Hockey League standard.
It’s Kieffer’s favorite way to make a “bleak day go by faster,” and his three kids get a real kick out of it, too.
Samuel Kieffer, 16, plays junior varsity ice hockey at Fox Chapel High School, and Jesse, 12, is on the Pittsburgh Aviators, also of the PAHL.
Even Savanna, 10, who doesn’t play organized hockey, gets in on the action. On Saturday afternoon, she went to see if the 5-year-old who lives next door was available to skate. No dice.
The night before, though, Kieffer had around 30 people over. Like Sargo’s rink, the kids tend to skate while the adults gravitate toward the warmth of a fire.
“Those are the reasons why I do it — so they have these memories for life,” Kieffer said.
Maybe a money-saver
Time is the real challenge with transforming a backyard into a miniature hockey arena. Money, not so much — especially compared to the cost of ice time at a proper rink.
Wood, a lining and a whole bunch of water are the basic components.
“We reuse a lot,” Sargo said. “For me, it was a $300 initial purchase, and every year is $100 plus water.”
There are a few other things to consider. A net, for one, and each do-it-yourself rink manager has to rig a Zamboni-like device to keep the surface shiny.
Kieffer, a plumber by trade, hooks a hose directly to his home’s hot waterline and sprays it out of a rectangular contraption made of pipes. A towel absorbs the flow and drags along the ice to smooth it out.
He’s also added lights beneath the ice that project a blue line and a red face-off circle. Neighbors, beware: A goal horn could be coming in the near future, he joked.
His next major project, set to be begin in earnest this summer, is a retention pond that can be used to fill the rink and save on water bills.
Still, the roughly $600 Kieffer spends on the rink is no match for what it would cost to get private ice time at one of about 25 indoor facilities in the region, if they’re even available. An hour can go for hundreds of dollars.
Ice hockey requires lots of equipment and is played in much more specialized facilities than, say, soccer. It can take a financial toll on families.
In a 2019, report the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute estimated parents with kids in organized ice hockey spend an average of $2,583 per-year, per child. At the most competitive youth levels, annual costs can reach $10,000, by some approximations.
That’s part of why John Rosa, of New Kensington, vouches for backyard rinks. He received a purpose-built kit from his cousin about five years back, which can run buyers roughly $5,000.
Featured Local Businesses
But that kind of money — or his luck — isn’t required to keep a sliver of ice hockey at home.
“If you do it yourself with the 1-by-12’s and a liner for $500, you can have one up,” John Rosa said. “It can be cheap, and it eliminates (the kids) from going to stick time or public skate to get their fix.”
Rosa’s boys, Domenic, 15, and Dante, 8, use the rink every chance they get, whether it’s to skate around, practice dekes or, as they’ve been known to do, drop the gloves and stage mock fights. It keeps them off YouTube and video games, he noted.
And according to Domenic, a quiet teenager who has played hockey for six years, it’s pretty cool to show off to friends.
“They like it,” he said. “They’re all surprised and stuff.”
Dante is of even fewer words, but he delivered some bad news from the living room Saturday evening while dressed head-to-toe in hockey gear: The Pittsburgh Penguins were down 5-0 to the Ottawa Senators.
He planned to get back on the ice in a few minutes.