Outdoor rinks have become increasingly popular, but for many Newfoundlanders, building and maintaining an outdoor ice surface presents a significant challenge.

The Newfoundland Outdoor Rinks! Facebook group started out small but has attracted some 1.6 thousand members.

Administrator Scott Sears says he started building and maintaining an outdoor rink for his son ten years ago and created the group for a small group of friends and others, who had questions and suggestions about building outdoor rinks.

Since then, it’s taken off.

He says over the last 14 months with COVID and the shut down of indoor rinks, interest in outdoor rinks has really grown.

He says the weather on the island portion of the province can be challenging for maintaining a rink and admits, it takes a lot of time and dedication.

One piece of advice Sears has for anyone contemplating building a rink is to make sure you gauge the slope of your land.

Sears jokes he learned the hard way, saying if you don’t check the slope, the rink will never work out.