NORTH ANDOVER — It’s just after school on a recent Friday, and a pack of sixth-graders are crammed into a small outdoor rink, doing what packs of sixth-graders do. Five boys are seeing how far they can slide on their butts. Two girls are complaining that they can’t feel their fingers. And another girl is telling a boy that she is taller than him.
“This feels like old-timey New England,” said Rick Gorman, as he watches the children skate behind the North Andover Youth Center, which he runs. “We’ve already had more skating days this year than the previous three years combined.”
Massachusetts is experiencing a cold snap like it hasn’t felt in years, and with it has come a proper outdoor skating season, with solid ice the last few weeks.
“There’s very few people who are as happy now as backyard rink owners,” said Brian Packard of North Andover, who owns YardRInk, which sells kits to build backyard rinks (and who donated the rink at the youth center).
“It’s hit or miss, Packard said. “Some years, you can build a rink and end up with a backyard swimming pool. But every now and then we get an amazing skating winter like we’re having this year.”
Across the region, on ponds and lakes and small rinks, scenes are playing out like the one in North Andover. Aleia Ponciano, 11, was trying to count the number of times she had fallen — she thinks it’s seven – while her best friend, Ruby Pieritt, was telling her it was because she keeps trying to push everyone.
“That’s because it’s fun to watch other people fall,” Ponciano said. Pieritt did not argue with her.
Billy Baker can be reached at billy.baker@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @billy_baker.