Whether it was high summer or 5 degrees below freezing: Jules Broens was always busy with his ice rink in Bladel. Year after year he managed to be one of the first to open a skating rink on natural ice. And all of Brabant held him in their hearts when he was always in tears when the first skaters took to the ice. But unfortunately, Jules will no longer experience the ice this winter, because he died on December 10 from acute leukemia.
“He had here gere attended,” says Miriam Beerends, Jules’ girlfriend. “He had already cleaned up his skates two years ago, but he still had the itch to get on the ice. He was also disappointed that it was still warm for so long this fall,” she says.
“Sometimes they were there spraying from seven in the evening until seven in the morning.”
Few people had such a deep love for ice as Jules Broens. As soon as the mercury dropped below freezing, he ensured that the basketball court at the Mariaschool in Bladel was flooded. He started this in 1980 on a lawn of the Bladella football club. And after 25 years he continued his life’s work at the Mariaschool.
“The municipality gave the permit, but he himself looked for sponsors to build a well. And for the lamps that had to be on at night,” says Miriam. After that, he was watering every year at the first frost together with Wim and Jos Beerends, Miriam’s father and uncle.
“Even if it was only for a day, as soon as it froze they got going. Sometimes they were there from seven at night until seven in the morning.” They didn’t care about the cold and the tiredness. “And it had to be done as quickly as possible, so that they were the first job in the Netherlands.”
“He loved skating and loved seeing those kids out there.”
The ice rink was Jules’ passion and his life. “He preferred to talk about nothing else,” says Miriam. “Even in the summer when it was 25 degrees. We would be at the campsite and it would be scorching hot and he would say: ‘You thought that we can make ice cream this year?’ He loved skating and was so excited to see those kids doing it,” says Miriam. He really enjoyed that.”
As soon as the ice rink could open, Jules was emotional every year. But according to Miriam, those were not tears of happiness. “Those tears came because things went wrong at the football club. He stopped there because of an argument. He always had to think about that during those interviews and then he became emotional.”
“The fact that he had to stop and the rink would disappear hurt him.”
After heart surgery, Jules retired as an ice cream master in 2021. With pain in my heart, especially because the municipality was not allowed to have an ice rink that year due to corona. He hoped to find a successor for the years that followed, but that did not happen. “It hurt him that he had to stop and that the ice rink would disappear,” sighs Miriam. “That was also the last time he stood on the irons. He was afraid he would break something and then cleaned everything up.”
At the beginning of December, Jules was told that he had acute leukemia. “He had to go to the hospital for a blood check and that’s when they discovered it. He remained in the hospital and only lived for five days,” says Miriam sadly.
Jules passed away on December 10, 2023 and was 74 years old.
Many Brabanders developed a soft spot for the emotional Jules. In his last year as ice master it was skating weather, but there was no ice rink in Bladel:
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