Bill Martens has high hopes of what he’d like to see happen at his remarkable backyard rink — an exhibition hockey game that would raise thousands of dollars for charity.

Considering what this retired 69-year-old colon cancer survivor has already done, I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulls it off.

“Four years ago, I was literally dead,” Martens said from his home on McCreary Road in Charleswood.

“So this is good for me. I feel really well and exercise is good for that.”

While most of us spent much of last month — the second-coldest December Winnipeg has endured in 100 years — huddled indoors, Martens was busy constructing a rink like no other in his backyard.

“I call it the snow bowl,” Martens said.

Martens’ vision is to host a minor hockey exhibition game that would be officiated by a few celebrities from Winnipeg’s sports scene. He’d like to invite Winnipeg Jets anthem singer Stacey Nattrass to open the game in grand style and find a local business to sponsor the event, giving them naming rights to the rink.

Plans are still in the works, but Martens said it would be nice to have a game organized for Jan. 18 to celebrate the annual Hockey Day in Canada festivities.

The rink is 111 feet long and 44 feet wide, complete with rounded corners and boards made from solid blocks of snow.

What sets it apart from most backyard rinks is what’s around it. Martens has constructed rows of bleachers that surround the entire rink, which he estimates will hold between 1,000 and 1,200 spectators.

“Everything is made from snow — it’s totally snow from the boards down to the ice,” Martens said. “In the construction of the boards and bleachers, there’s well over 3,000 blocks of snow.”

Martens started his rink construction in early December. He’s done about 70% of the work himself, but friends and neighbours have helped him haul snow to the rink. He figured he hauled another 6,000 gallons of water with his truck.

He expects to have it completed in a couple of days once he’s added lights and netting at each end.

“I would have liked to build it a little bit bigger but it’s as big as I could built it in my yard,” he said.

The rink is the latest snow creation for Martens, who has been building huge forts, toboggan slides and other winter structures since he was a teenager.

After creating the ice surface, he began construction of the boards and bleachers by blowing snow into windrows around the perimeter.

“It’s hard work but once you move the puffy snow into windrows, then it turns hard over night,” he said. “I’m not a professor, so I don’t know how it works, but it gets hard overnight.

“Then you go out there with your handsaw and cut your blocks. People can’t grasp (how it’s come together) but it’s very, very simple.”

Martens said he had no problem staying warm while he did the work and shrugged off how many hours he worked outside.

“That’s nothing,” he said. “Look what they did in ancient Greece and Egypt. They built pyramids.”