Unlike many of his peers, Dave Neelis, 36, did not play hockey as a kid growing up on the frozen tundra of Central Wisconsin.
But Neelis, owner of Dave’s Sewer Service, Waupaca, Wis., is making up for lost time.
“I got into hockey 11 years ago and I love it,” he says. “We have a men’s league in Waupaca and I sponsor and play for the Dave’s Sewer Service team.”
Neelis also got his daughters involved in youth hockey when they were 9 and 10 years old, plus he built and maintains a full-size hockey rink in his rural front yard, where he spends hours skating and working on his game.
“You can’t beat playing hockey outdoors like it was when it started back in the day,” he says.
Neelis got started in hockey when a buddy who owed him money said he would pay him back by paying his fee to join a local amateur hockey team.
“I didn’t even know how to skate very well,” he recalls. “But it was the only way to collect my money.”
Already active in sports like volleyball, softball, tennis and snowmobiling, Neelis discovered he enjoyed hockey too. But being a latecomer to the game, he felt he needed more practice.
“When my daughters started playing too, I built the rink, because we wanted to better ourselves but I couldn’t afford to rent ice all the time,” he says.
Neelis initially thought he’d make the rink about 20 by 20 feet — just big enough for himself and the girls to practice stick handling and shooting. When he finished, it was 60 by 150 feet with a goal on each end for pick-up games with buddies or local kids.
“This is the fifth winter I’ve had a rink,” says Neelis, whose business office doubles as a warming shed. “Perfect ice is my goal.”
Or possibly, his obsession.
IF YOU BUILD IT …
To start the project, Neelis put his excavating skills to work, removing dirt to a four-foot depth and piling the spoils around the outside of the rink. For the first couple of years, pucks would fly out of the rink and get lost in the dirt, which, he says, was an annoyance, so two years ago he took the next step. He built dasher boards inside the rink and leveled out the dirt embankments.
He fills the rink each year with water from a neighboring farm’s irrigation pond, and yes, he cleans out his 1981 International truck with a rebuilt engine, 2,400-gallon tank and Moro M-10 pump and uses it to haul the water.
Neelis waits until the temperature gets down to 15 degrees for a few days and puts one layer of about 7,000 gallons of water in the rink for a base.
“Most of it soaks away, but if I’m lucky it will freeze enough to get it started,” he says.
He’ll add a second layer, and after that ice “takes” and is good and hard, he’ll haul 20,000 to 30,000 more gallons of water to flood the rink.
“The pond is seven or eight miles away and by the time we get back the previous layer is hard already,” he says.
After the water is hauled, the rink is filled and the ice is hard, Neelis’ work has only just begun.
“We have a well and there’s a hydrant by the rink so I can hose down the ice after anyone finishes skating on it,” he says. “A lot of times I’m out here until midnight or even 2 a.m. because that’s when it’s coldest, so it’s the best time to hose it down. It gets rock hard.”
Neelis says a good winter for his business is a bad year for ice, so he’s covered whatever Mother Nature brings.
“Last year was the worst year for ice,” he says. “There was no frost, so we dug septic tanks all year round.”
In a good ice year, Neelis will fill the rink in December and skate through mid to late February. “After that, the sun beats on it too much,” he says.
Neelis took over Dave’s Sewer Service from his dad, who still occasionally helps out his son and the company’s two employees. They pump 70 to 80 tanks a week in the busier non-ice seasons. Over the years the company has accumulated a variety of trucks, including a 1992 Ford L-8000 with a 2,300-gallon tank and a Moro M10 pump; a 1989 International with a 3,500-gallon tank and a new Jurop R260 pump; plus a 1996 International being outfitted with a 2,300-gallon T-Line tank and a Moro M10 pump.
SNOW PROBLEM
Building an ice rink involves a lot of experimentation. Neelis says a plastic liner would be ideal, but is cost prohibitive. For the first few years, the rink bottom was sand, but this year he tried a different approach.
“I waited until it snowed, got my four-wheeler and snowmobile out and kept driving over and over it until it was packed down,” he explains. “Then at about 9 p.m. I watered it down with my garden hose. The next morning I had ice, and then I started hauling water.”
Neelis says it’s the best ice he’s had yet.
“I dumped about 24,000 gallons but didn’t lose any water into the ground, so I have thicker ice this year,” he says. “I have anywhere from 4 to 9 inches depending on my low and high spots.”
Frequent Wisconsin snowfalls create an ice maintenance issue. For light dustings, Neelis skates around with a shovel. He says it takes him about 90 minutes to clear the entire surface this way. For heavier snows, he uses a snow blower or a skid-steer to remove the snow from the ice. He’d really like to have a Zamboni ice-surfacing machine, and is trying to figure out how to convert a riding lawn mower into a small-scale resurfacer.
Neelis’ daughters Elizabeth, 16, and Samantha, 15, continue to skate on the rink frequently, even though their involvement in organized team hockey has decreased as they progress through their teen years. Neelis’ wife, Tina, also uses the rink, though Neelis says she’s not always its biggest fan.
“Tina wasn’t very happy at first since I used an acre to build the rink and I spend so much time on it,” he says. “But then she started to skate with us and it was all good.”
