Frozen fantasy: Toycen family brings backyard skating rink to life

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By CANDICE NOVITZKE
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 12:10 PM CST

The Chippewa Herald

This winter hasn’t been hard on the Toycen family of Chippewa Falls. In fact, it’s been one of the best they can recall.

It’s the first year Jim Toycen and his son Daniel, 11, built a 77-by-32-foot ice rink in the family’s empty lot next door to their house.

“For years they’ve been wanting to do this,” said Liza Toycen, Daniel’s mother.

Daniel and his friends skate on the rink for two or three hours most evenings they don’t already have hockey practice.

“I just like it a lot,” Daniel said, whizzing by on his skates and slamming a hockey puck into the goal.

You could say hockey is a family interest. Jim regularly plays hockey for a team at the Eau Claire Indoor Sports Center. And Daniel entered his first year in Pee Wee hockey this year n but he’s been enjoying time on the ice since he was 4.

Although Liza doesn’t skate, she still enjoys the rink quite a bit.

“It’s been a blast,” she said. “It’s really pretty when you turn on all the floodlights at night.”

“The winters fly by for us,” Jim said. “Building the rink was a challenge, but it was a learning experience.”

Rumor has it the family who lived at 433 Dover St. before the Toycens also had an outdoor skating rink. There’s a perfect side lot for it, after all.

They’re not sure how the previous family constructed the rink, but first the Toycens measured out the desired rink area. They bought a silo liner to line it, then lumber to seal down the edges. Little by little, Jim started to flood the rink.

“You can’t just fill it all up at once, or you’ll have bubbles like you get in ice cubes,” Liza said. “I don’t know how many nights Jim was out there in minus zero weather, filling it with a hose run from the basement. This has truly been a labor of love for them.”

It’s also been a great way to pass the time during the winter. A genuine Wisconsin winter is one of the things they’d hoped for after moving here from Georgia in 2000. But their first few years here were anything but “real Wisconsin winters.”

“We went out and bought Daniel a toboggan when we moved here, but he had to wait three years to use it,” Liza recalls.

There’s been no shortage of cold and ice this winter, that’s for sure. Although, they could have done with a bit less snow. After every snowfall the rink has to be shoveled off, cleaned with a push broom, and a new layer of ice laid down.

But it’s all worth it in the end.

“It’s been a big hit with Daniel and his friends,” Jim said.

Reach Candice Novitzke at candice.novitzke@lee.net.

Click here to view or purchase exclusive photographs taken by The Chippewa Herald of the Toycens' ice rink.