A small army of 30 was working to transform the Buckskill Tennis Club into the Buckskill Winter Club on Nov. 20, the plan being that a regulation-size ice rink overlying four Har-Tru courts there will be up and running on Thanksgiving Day.
Doug De Groot, who, with his wife, Kathryn, owns the club, said in its clubhouse that “we’re switching from the ultimate summer sport to the ultimate winter sport, skating. It’s our 22nd year. You and I were young men when we started.”
The Winter Club was, he said, “basically a labor of love. . . . It’s much more difficult to maintain an outdoor rink than an indoor one, because the weather’s always affecting the ice. If it rains, the ice is too thick and you have to cut it. If it snows and it doesn’t melt, you have to remove it. If it’s too sunny, that’s a challenge. Overcast days are good. It’s a constant process.”
The schedule, which can be seen online by dialing up buckskillwinterclub.com, offers figure skating, hockey, and curling lessons, and says that the club can be rented for birthday parties, private parties, and charity events.
As for hockey, the Hackers, whose roster numbers 30, are celebrating their 20th season at Buckskill, according to Tim Garneau, the group’s head. They play Saturday mornings from 8:45 to 10:15. “The age range is 32 to 72, the 72-year-old being John Battle, who handed the Hackers off to me in 2018. We welcome women, though Britton Bistrian is the only one at the moment.”
The Hackers and the First Responders, which Bistrian, a member of the Amagansett Fire Department, founded with the East Hampton Village Police Department’s Matt Kochanasz and Ed Reid “years ago,” are to play two games this winter, the first on New Year’s Day, the second on Feb. 26.
While the Hackers’ roster is full, “any first responder is welcome to play in our Wednesday and Sunday pickup games,” said Bistrian, whose roster numbers 54 at the moment.
De Groot said that he’s expecting the seventh-through-ninth-grade Whalers, a team coached by Bryan Wish of the Southampton Ice Rink that is making its debut in Suffolk County’s high school league this season, will play some games at Buckskill. “Bryan’s a great organizer — he’ll help us run some of our junior hockey programs here. He’s got so many kids playing at the Southampton rink that he’s out of space now — that’s how good he is.”
“A lot of hockey teams from up the Island rent ice from us,” De Groot added. “Most skaters on Long Island don’t get to skate outdoors, you know. They’re very enthusiastic when they play out here under blue skies in the fresh air. People like skating here at night too — we’ve got great night lighting.”
“What else? We’ll have a Skate With Santa on Christmas Eve. That’s popular with the kids. We’ll have a Katy’s Courage fund-raiser, and an ice show. The ice dancers who come out from the Ice Theatre of New York for the Katy’s Courage event and the ice show are incredible. . . . We’re trying to do curling on Tuesdays, at the same time as adult skate night. It’s relaxed skating, typically there are a lot of kids running around. Curling isn’t easy, you know, it’s tough. It’s like you lunging for a volley way off the court.”
