Pond hockey and ice fishing, a perfect combination

Organized pond hockey made its debut during the 2025 Saratoga Lake Ice Fishing Derby.

Six teams participated in a round-robin style tournament throughout the two derby days.

“This is awesome,” a frozen-mustachioed Tommy Jansen, 38, Laramie, said about the tournament, “got good ice, it’s nice, hard. And the games are quick.”

The ice is more manicured playing on a rink but Mother Nature does all the work out on the Lake, Jansen said.

“These guys have been great with either flooding the ice out, getting the divots, the cracks and everything,” he said. “We had to take a blow torch to some stuff this (Sunday) morning as far as bigger cracks to seal it back in.”

Getting a zamboni out to, let alone on, Saratoga Lake to make repairs would be a tall task. The players MacGyver the ice repairs using snow, a puck and blow torch.

“Just heat the crack up, pack a little snow in there, melt it down in and then take a puck and smooth it back over,” Jansen said, “within a couple minutes it’s all smoothed down.”

Jansen hopes the pond hockey tradition continues with future Derby’s.

“I’m looking forward to coming back,” he said, “It was a ton of fun.”