Hard sports courts or tennis courts present many different challenges when building an ice rink. The repeated concern is that customers do not want to drill into their hard court…quite understandable! Since every hard court scenario is different, Iron Sleek will try to present you with some ideas to build a rink on a hard court or on a tennis court. A few good pictures can tell the story best.
Below is an ideal scenario. Grass on all 4 sides. It is ideal because you can use Iron Sleek brackets right into the lawn to secure the rink.
Boards on the lawn with court on the inside.
Be sure to protect the liner from a possible sharp edge where the court meets the lawn. 8″ LPS does a great job to handle that.
Do not want to use the full Tennis court? Use the sleeper method. Lay a 2 by 12′ or plywood down on to the court with the Iron Sleek Hard court bracket. Reach back with sleepers to spike down or secure against fence.
Secure it outside the Sports Pad!
Use the hard court bracket and secure against fence.
Completely on a hard court. If you do it this way, be sure to find a way to either sleeper back to something secure or to weigh down the rink. This rink still need supports for the tall backboards. A hard court bracket alone is not enough to sustain the leverage of a 42″ board. You would still need Iron Sleek Outriggers.
If all else fails, you can use sand bags. Sand bags are the least preferred method on a hard court rink. A freeze thaw scenario will cause the boards to drift and this can likely cause the liner to over stretch. An overstretched liner will eventually fail. Also, sand bags are much too heavy to handle. I recommend saving your energy for fun versus tossing heavy sand bags around. I would avoid sand bags if at all possible.
Hopefully some of these strategies can apply to your hard court rink. One other thing to keep in mind is that if you are building this rink every year, it may not be such a bad idea to have some reusable pilot holes to secure the rink. We have many customer who take that approach. Please feel free to give us a call to discuss your project. We are happy to help out.