Last updated: August 2026
We build synthetic ice rinks for schools, municipalities and NHL-partnered community projects. The panels we sell for backyards are the same ones. Not a lighter consumer version — the same dual-sided, sinter-pressed commercial panel, in a size that fits your yard.
Installed by you in a weekend, or by us.
What most backyard rinks actually are
Most backyard synthetic ice sold online is injection-moulded tile — polymer injected into a mould, producing a tile with a hollow honeycomb underside. It’s inexpensive and light, and there’s a reason for both.
- One skateable side. When the surface wears, it’s finished.
- Hollow construction flexes underfoot, which increases skating resistance. That’s the sluggish feeling people describe on cheap synthetic ice.
- Typically lower-grade resin, which sheds more and wears faster.
They’re fine for a shooting pad in a garage. They’re not what you want if someone is going to skate on it every day for ten years.
Our panels are solid, dual-sided, sinter-pressed VHMW-PE — the same commercial grade we install in schools and municipal rinks, and the same grade the premium European brands use. Two skateable faces at 10–15 years each. Flip them when the first side wears and you get a second full lifespan out of the same purchase.
Installation: what "easy" actually means
The panels interlock by hand. No tools, no adhesive, no fixing to the ground. Two people can lay a typical backyard rink in a weekend.
Check your site first
| Your surface | What’s involved |
|---|---|
| Concrete patio or slab | Ideal. Lay the panels, skate |
| Asphalt driveway or pad | Usually fine if level and in good repair |
| Interlocking pavers | Workable if flat and stable |
| Compacted gravel | Needs screeding and a level base layer |
| Grass or soil | Needs excavation, base material and compaction |
| Sloped ground | Needs levelling before anything else |
How to check: run a long straight edge or a string line across the area in several directions and look for dips and high spots. If the surface is consistently flat, you’re ready. If not, that’s a base-prep job before the rink arrives.
Not sure? Send us photos and dimensions and we’ll tell you.
We can install it for you anywhere we service from our Montreal and Fort Lauderdale depots, if you’d rather not.
Sizes
We cut to any shape or size, so the constraint is your yard rather than a catalogue. These are the three sizes most backyard customers land on.
| Size | Area | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 20′ × 20′ | 400 sq ft | Stickhandling, shooting, skills work. Fits most patios |
| 30′ × 50′ | 1,500 sq ft | Real skating — edge work, crossovers, one or two players |
| 40′ × 80′ | 3,200 sq ft | Full family use and small-area games |
| Custom | — | Any shape or size, cut to your yard |
Send us the dimensions of the space and we’ll tell you what fits and what it costs. Add-ons include containment boards, nets, line markings, a weather tarp and a maintenance kit.
Lead time: 8–12 weeks from order.
CryoBlades™: the half nobody else built
Here’s the thing this industry doesn’t like to talk about. Most synthetic ice doesn’t feel much like ice, and it eats skate edges. Both complaints are real, both are constant, and both have the same cause.
A steel blade glides on real ice because pressure and friction melt a microscopic film of water beneath it. The blade isn’t sliding on ice — it’s sliding on water it creates as it goes. On a polymer surface that film doesn’t exist. The blade ploughs instead of gliding, and the surface grinds down the edge.
Every manufacturer has attacked this from the panel side: denser polymers, better glide agents, tighter seams. That work took synthetic ice a long way and then stopped, because no panel can make a steel blade behave the way it does on water.
We built the other half. CryoBlades is the first blade system designed for polymer from the ground up rather than adapted from steel, developed alongside our panels as a matched system. Nobody has done this before — the surface and the blade engineered for each other.
The result is the closest thing to real ice we’ve put skates on, and edges that stop being a weekly chore.
Your regular skates work fine on our panels. CryoBlades is what makes it feel like the real thing.
Launching January 2027. Join the waitlist →
Maintenance
- Vacuum loose shavings every few sessions
- Rinse or power wash roughly monthly
- Cover with a tarp when not in use for long periods
- No water, no electricity, no resurfacing
There’s no season, no flooding, no waiting for a cold snap, and no watching it melt in February.
Why not just flood the yard?
If you live somewhere cold enough, a flooded backyard rink is cheaper. Real ice is real ice.
What it isn’t is reliable. You get the weeks the weather gives you, you re-flood after every thaw, and in an increasingly unpredictable winter you may get very little. A synthetic rink costs more up front and then works in October, in April, and at 40°C.
If you’re in a reliably cold climate and happy with six weeks a year, flood the yard. If you want your kid on the ice in July — or you’re anywhere south of a dependable freeze — this is the option that exists.