An inventive grandfather in Colpitts Settlement just outside Moncton wanted to spend more time playing with his grandson than tending to his skating rink, so he came up with a clever way to clear off the ice on the pond in his backyard.
READ MORE: Alberta man pulls up to Tim Hortons drive-thru in his Zamboni: ‘It was the most Canadian thing’
Don Knee made a homemade ice-cleaning machine from stuff just laying around his garage.
“I am the official snow clearer,” Knee said.
Knee said he will do whatever it takes to make his six-year-old grandson, Grayson Aguilar-Knee, smile.
“He’s a pretty great person,” Aguilar-Knee said.
The 67-year-old grandfather said that when the time came to clear off a pond in his backyard for his grandson to play hockey, he knew he had to come up with something to help with the mammoth task.
WATCH: A New Brunswick grandfather who wanted to spend more time on the ice, rather than scraping it, with his grandson has created a homemade ice clearing machine with stuff lying around his garage. Global’s Shelley Steeves reports.
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“It’s 800 feet from the house down to the pond so sometimes that can be hard to do,” Knee said.
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The solution came in the form of an old cooler in his garage.
“I put some skis on it, tapped a hole though it and put a pipe on it and a valve and hung a dog blanket off the end of it and I can use it for a Zamboni,” he said.
The end result was unexpected, especially for Knee’s daughter Kerry.
READ MORE: Lack of snow puts ‘paws’ on NB dog sledding business
“When I saw it I kinda laughed at it cause I thought it looked ridiculous,” Kerry said about her dad’s creation. “I was surprised that it actually works, anyone can do it”.
The water-soaked dog blanket slides across the ice leaving behind a smooth sheet of ice and Knee said he is considering making a how-to video so that other people can use his invention.
Knee joked saying the makeshift ice-cleaning machine likely doesn’t warrant a patent, but it does allow him to spend less time tending to the ice and more time playing hockey with his grandson.
“He loves it. He’s only six, so I can’t wait till he’s 12 so he can help,” Knee said.
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