'A magical place': Stratford man still building community rink after 23 years
'I don't do it for accolades, I just do it for the kids in the neighborhood'
You can't blame people in Stratford for referring to the community rink at Moores Pond as Gordie's rink. After all, Gordie Cox has been flooding, shovelling and supplying electricity to the ice surface across the road from his house since 1993.
"People at times call it Gordie's Pond but in reality it's not my pond," said Cox.
"I've had people come and ring my doorbell and say can I use your rink and I say, it's not my rink, I'm just the guy who maintains it."
There had been some attempts to clear a rink before Cox arrived, but he soon added nets, shovels and eventually lights.
"I moved across the street from the pond, and it was almost an instant thing that I gravitated towards the pond at wintertime to create some rinks … for the neighborhood," said Cox.
"I started by creating a main area, and then a secondary area and sometimes a third and fourth rink depending on the amount of traffic that's there."
He even used to attach the cord for the lights to the side of his house, running it across the road, and went through "a lot of extension cords" over the years.
Flooding the rinks has also evolved over the years. He started taking over garbage cans full. Now he makes a hole in the ice and puts in a sump pump, using the water from the pond to flood the ice.
"When the ice gets sugary, I call it, I end up re-flooding the pond," said Cox.
Rules of the rink
The games on the pond get organized spontaneously.
"It's just whoever shows up," he said. "There's no booking the pond, there are no fees."
Cox has five basic rules: no drinking, no smoking, appropriate language, put garbage in the can and at the end of the night, take the nets off the ice and turn the lights off.
He recalls one day when there were 43 kids out on the ice, playing hockey and ringette or just skating. He took the barbecue across the road and served hot dogs right out on the ice surface.
The rinks even have names.
The main rink, Cox has dubbed "The Jimmy" and the second rink he calls "The Pam," in honour of Jimmy and Pam Dunn, long time volunteers with Pownal minor hockey association.
"And there's actually kids who will text me or text my son and say, is the Jimmy okay to use today, or the Pam?"
Where kids can be kids
Cox's neighbour Jill Chandler calls the rinks on Moores Pond a "magical place."
"The outdoor rink down from our house is one of my favourite places to watch my kids be kids, no schedules, no rush to be somewhere else, no screens," she said.
Serious injury
Cox only fell once in all those years, but it was quite a fall.
"It had rained that morning and the ice was smooth and like glass," said Cox.
"I stepped on the ice and I flew into the air and came straight down on my back."
He cracked two vertebrae, pinched a nerve, slipped a disc, pinched the sciatic nerve and tore muscles up his back.
He ended up in hospital for a couple of weeks, and at home for five weeks recuperating.
He now wears metal grippers for the bottom of his shoes.
"I didn't think I'd come back and do it, but I still came back and did it the next year."
The weather challenge
As with every outdoor rink, weather has been one of the biggest challenges over the years.
"This is probably the third year out of the last 23 that we've been on the pond before Christmas," he said.
In recent years, the pond has also taken a hit from heavy snowfall in late January and early February, shutting the rinks down.
"When the snow ends up being four and five feet high, it's just almost impossible because by the time you get the snowblower down, the ice has been insulated by the snow and it gets so soft you can't use the snowblower."
This year has been a good one, with three and half weeks in already, one of the longest they've had in years. The season usually lasts six to eight weeks.
Family memories
Cox has only played three games of hockey himself over the years because he was "too busy doing the maintenance part".
"I don't do it for accolades, I just do it for the kids in the neighborhood."
He has a son and two daughters who have grown up on Moores Pond.
"My son who's played minor hockey, he's 21 now and this is his last year playing Junior B hockey, he's had friends there since he was four of five years old."
"I think when he's in his thirties, he'll look back and probably the best hockey, the most fun hockey he ever played was not in minor hockey but on that pond.
"Same with my daughters, I think they'll look back and the years on the pond were pretty special."
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