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For 15 seasons he was Captain Crunch, the gritty heart-and-soul of several NHL teams.

Today, Wendel Clark is just the Zamboni driver.

At his 40-acre spread 50 kilometres north of Toronto, Mr. Clark derives as much satisfaction laying a glassy finish behind his portable ice resurfacer as he once did wristing pucks past helpless goalies.

"It's pretty much my day job," says the son of a Saskatchewan farmer.

Enclosed by a barn and chilled by a high-power refrigeration unit, Mr. Clark's 125-foot-long rink is a little more elaborate than the rough-hewn backyard sheets on which stars such as Wayne Gretzky honed their game. But that's not that unusual these days.

For the past decade, the popularity of up-market backyard rinks has exploded in North America as hockey fans try to cram as much of the big-league spectacle as they can into the comfort of their own property.

Where hockey dads of decades past slapped together workable rinks with little more than plywood and a garden hose, today's backyard sheets incorporate stadium lighting, mini Zambonis, full boards and cooling systems capable of sustaining ice before the weather hits -15.

Owners of these sophisticated backyard rinks say they were forced into it. Warmer winters have made ice maintenance across Canada's southern population belt a complicated affair.

"The climate here just isn't conducive to backyard rinks any more," Mr. Clark says. "A lot of people try but only get two weeks out of it."

Laurence Metrick learned this the hard way. For three years, he tried making old-fashioned ice in his front yard. But he and his two kids were forced to skip two of the three seasons because of slush.

"I didn't like it," says the director of Metrick Entertainment, a communications company. "I'd be out their watering forever. The odd time, I'd fall in a puddle of water."

So one day eight years ago, Mr. Metrick, vacillating between investing in a better rink or a new Porsche, called Custom Ice Inc., a Burlington, Ont., company that had launched a few months earlier to build residential ice sheets and refrigeration units.

"It turned out the rink was cheaper than the Porsche," Mr. Metrick says. The company installed a 50-by-30-foot ice surface with a small cooling unit.

"It was by far the best dumb thing I've ever done in my life," he says.

The mini-rink takes its share of labours. His two boys, 16 and 13, have spent much of this winter shovelling snow and resurfacing the ice with hot water. "In our house, anyone who wants to take a shower at night - too bad!"

Mr. Metrick's ice lasts for about five months in a climate where the average natural rink yields little more than six weeks of good skating.

That extended shinny schedule comes at a price. The average Custom Ice rink costs about $75,000, according to the company, and it has sold fully enclosed models complete with bleacher seating and stadium lighting for about $1-million.

"A lot of parents just want their kids to have that extra little edge," says Glenn Winder, vice-president of Custom Ice. "Every parent with a kid between the ages of 5 and 10 thinks they have a future NHLer on their hands. They call our rinks the scholarship fund."

The flock of rink companies popping up see some parallels between their market now and the backyard pool market during the early seventies.

"They're a bit of a status symbol for some, but they're about to go mainstream," says Damian Agostini, founder and president of Backyard Rinks Ltd., a booming small business that installs and maintains home rinks.

Mr. Agostini, a former ice maintenance worker with the City of Toronto, has been helping people install home ice since 1993. But it was only four years ago that he left his city gig and went to work for Backyard Rinks full-time. This winter, he and his 10-man crew are clocking 12-hour days as they install and maintain rinks for an elite clientele. The likes of Roots Canada Ltd. co-founder Michael Budman, hockey analyst Nick Kypreos and former NHL great Paul Coffey call regularly for help with everything from erasing pressure cracks to clearing snow.

Mr. Agostini's sheets range in size from 30-foot shooting ranges to the regulation size sheet that Mr. Coffey recently had built at his car dealership in Bolton, Ont.

"My vision is to ice every yard," says Mr. Agostini, who is close to launching franchises in Buffalo and Montreal. "Every time I go on a flight and see all the pools in people's backyards, I think, 'That could be ice.' "

But the growing desire for backyard ice isn't limited to the well-off. Those who can't justify a five-figure expense on glycol-cooled rinks with halogen lighting can contact Brian Young, who has been selling specially designed plastic liners, ice flooders and board brackets for outdoor rinks since 1992.

Mr. Young started his Stratford, Ont., business, the Ultimate Outdoor Rink, as a labour of love. He had been experimenting with the 40-by-60-foot pad in his yard for a while and figured it was time to impart his expertise to others. Recently, however, he doesn't have a lot of spare time to skate. "It's been go, go, go. This is our busiest period ever."

Like many North Americans who have discovered the pleasures of a backyard rink, Mr. Young says his sheet of ice changed his whole outlook on winter. "Winter turned from pain to pleasure," he says. "It gets so November rolls around and you can't wait for the thermometer to drop below zero."

Ice ice baby

Money can't buy you Walter Gretzky's prestige, but it can buy you a decent rink. Here's what you get for your bucks.

$35

The Rink-in-a-Blink kit from Backyard Rinks Ltd. includes little more than a 10-by-20-foot polyethylene bag, but the instructions couldn't be simpler. Spread the bag on a flat surface and fill it with water. When it freezes, cut the top layer of plastic off and you're ready to skate.

$120-$580

All the materials for a rink from Ultimate Outdoor Rink. The package includes a plastic liner and specially designed J-brackets to hold up the boards.

$5,875

The high-end price for a DIY rink package, this includes a plastic liner, resurfacer and professional boards for a 72-by-140-foot ice sheet from Wisconsin's Nice Rink.

$25,000-$125,000

A portable outdoor rink from Backyard Rinks or Custom Ice with a cooled refrigeration unit and grid of glycol-filled piping that sits beneath the ice.

$200,000-$600,000

A permanent rink by Custom Ice approaching professional sizes. The cooling pipes are embedded in concrete like a big-league rink.

$1-million

Custom Ice will build you an NHL-size sheet, complete with roof..

Patrick White