(Updated 2:30 a.m., May 4)
Cardinal Creek volunteer award goes to pair of rink rats
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Bhupendar Patel and Jason Storm received the Cardinal Creek Volunteer of the Year Award for building and maintaining the Trim Road East community's outdoor rink this past winter. Fred Sherwin/Photo

When Jason Storm and Bhupendar Patel first volunteered to maintain Cardinal Creek's one and only outdoor rink last fall they had no idea what they were getting into. But what they lacked in experience, they more than made up for in community spirit.

Step 1 was to take an outdoor rink maintenance course given by the City of Ottawa. Step 2 was waiting for it to get cold enough to actual create the rink. In order to create the correct base for the ice surface you need at least three to four inches of snow on the ground. Then to build up the correct ice thickness, you need three consecutive days of minus 10 degree weather.

Finally, you need to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to flood the ice on those three consecutive days. After that you just have to flood it the odd time to keep it properly maintained and clear the surface whenever it snows.

For Storm and Patel it was a labour of love and a way to help out their community. They were paid back tenfold for their efforts by the smiles on the kids' faces who used the Cassia Park rink every day.

"Every day when I came home there were always people on the rink and on the weekends it was always full," says Patel, who along with Storm, received the Cardinal Creek Community Association's Volunteer of the Year Award on Thursday.

Besides helping out the community, Storm had two other special reasons to keep the rink properly groomed -- both his daughters are figure skaters.

The two men were fortunate in that there weren't too many heavy snowfalls while the rink was open so they didn't have to do a lot of shoveling. In fact, the only thing they will do differently next year is choose a different way to compact the snow before they flood the rink.

"We used a big piece of 4x8 plywood that Bhupendar kept in his basement and it got pretty heavy after awhile," says Storm who besides doing the rink maintenance also volunteered to help organize the Cardinal Creek garage sale last year and the Spring Clean-up.

Cardinal Creek Community Association president Sean Crossan was quick to applaud both Storm and Patel for their dedication and hard work.

"By volunteering to build the rink and get up at four and five o'clock in the morning, they allowed over 600 families in the community to enjoy the outdoors and go for a skate during the winter," says Crossan. "The award is just a way for the community to say thanks."

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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