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Your backyard rink can be whatever you want it to be. Before you sit down to draw up your plan or race off to pick up your materials, there are some things you need to think about first. Here are some thought-starters and general tips to ensure you get the most out of your rink and your rink-building experience.

Size matters. How big is your yard? Can it accommodate the 24'x46' dimensions outlined in our build instructions? Do you need one that big? Do you need it to be bigger? How many people do you expect to use your rink? Do you want it just for some one-on-one shinny or a whole game with two teams? How old are the hockey players and skaters?

Whatever you choose, just remember scaling the size of your rink up or down will affect your material costs, planning, time to actually build, and time spent maintaining the ice surface.

Check out your backyard and decide where you want to put your rink. You need to choose a relatively flat surface. Make sure it is level—you can't have one end of your rink significantly higher or lower than the other. Look for rocks or roots that might tear the liner.

If your rink is just for pleasure skating, or very young children pushing the puck around the ice, you may not need to invest the time, energy and finances required to put up boards. The frame will do just fine. However, boards have real benefits.

• They form a natural enclosure to your rink and keep snow from drifting across the surface

• They stop you from having to chase pucks after every wild shot

• They make your rink look like the real thing!

When it comes to planning the boards, are you fine with 3'x4' end boards and smaller 1'x3' side boards? Or do you want to increase the height with 4'x4' boards? And do you want them all the way around the perimeter?

If you go for higher boards all the way around, you'll need to think about creating an access door to allow skaters on the ice, and for you to easily take care of snow removal and moving the nets for flooding.

Our instructions leave a few pieces of lumber left over to help support the end boards. However, to save a few bucks you can also attach metal L-brackets to the back of the 2"x6" base pieces.

This along with the 12" spikes and freezing water over the bottom edge of your plywood boards inside the rink area will make it strong enough for most hockey games. You can also backfill the back of the boards with snow and ice for extra support.

Think about the longevity of your rink.

If you're just building your rink for this year for example, you can buy a painters tarp to line the rink. If you are planning to build for several years to come you may want to invest in a stronger vapour barrier, which comes in a range of thicknesses.

It really is best to use a liner. If you don't, you'll need a lot more effort and water to soak in and freeze the ground before you flood.

• A plastic liner or tarp acts as insulation between the ground and ice sheet

• It traps melting water so when the air temperature drops below zero, you still have ice to skate on

• A liner makes maintenance quick and easy and makes clean up in the spring much easier

If you're going to build a rink again next winter, where will you store your rink boards? Remember, labeling all the pieces 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C… will help save you time.

When it comes to creating your ice surface patience is more than a virtue.

• Take your time (it can take two to three days and many layers to build a good rink base)

• Routinely flood the rink to build up the ice thickness and maintain a good, even surface by spraying a fine mist of water every few days as needed

• Begin at one end of the rink and move slowly across the ice, creating a ripple-free pond of water

• Best time for flooding your rink: late evening when there's no wind or falling snow

If you try to put down too much water at once it may not freeze all the way through. There have been stories of impatient people filling their liner with three or four inches of water, only to have it run into their basement or a neighbour's basement, depending on the grade of the yard. So, take the time to flood often and do it right.

Some people use hot water to flood because it freezes faster; which is fine. But ask yourself this: Do you want the additional water heating costs on your winter bill? That's just something else to factor in when figuring out your overall budget.

And on that subject, you can also make your rink better with add-ons like chain-link fencing over the end boards and additional lights, but this will, again, cost you more.

Whatever you plan to do, make sure you're up for the task. As we said at the beginning, your rink is what you make it. Take the time to do it right and make sure you enjoy it.