When he disconnected the rear-axle steering it could pivot around the corner boards.Ĭonverting his creation to four-wheel drive in 1949, he filed U.S. So, in 1942, Frank bought a tractor and began testing a machine to shave the ice, flood the surface and collect chips and snow in an elevated tank.
#ICECAT ICE RESURFACER MANUAL#
Manual grooming with a water tank pulled by a crew of three or four was both cumbersome and time-consuming. They constructed an outdoor rink in Paramount big enough to accommodate 800 customers and without a dome for a time.īut long before the Kings, Ducks and Sharks began NHL play, the challenge to keep ice from becoming slush in the California heat had Frank spending plenty of time in his shop. With their ice-making expertise, the Zambonis scored big when figure skating became a popular adolescent pastime in the late ’30s. Frank grew up part of the family garage business with two brothers in the 1920s, specializing in refrigeration units for the dairy and produce industry. Papa Zamboni was Richard’s dad, Frank, who was recently inducted to the U.S.
#ICECAT ICE RESURFACER DRIVERS#
Today at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, there are five drivers for its two machines and five other support staff, but only two or three get the coveted game-night pilot’s seat.
“I fall in love with it every time I get on,” Galyean insisted.
Until the rink manager gave him a job application to drive one saying: “This should slow you down”.ĭubbing himself ‘Zam Man’ with his crowd-pleasing antics while at the wheel, he whips up the game-night fervour for the prospect league team, throwing t-shirts. The 55-year-old Galyean was a teenaged rink rat in Winston-Salem, N.C., who loved to show off his speed skating skills to the detriment of arena safety rules. The truth is everybody wants to drive it.” Every kid loves the Zamboni, even the big kids. “It’s something being driven on the ice, a machine on wheels, it’s just something different,” he told. Steven Galyean, who steers for the Carolina Thunderbirds of the Federal League, tried to convey the contraption’s unusual romance for spectators. He joined Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby, NASCAR’s Richard Petty and Peanuts characters Snoopy and Woodstock as instantly famous drivers. “It’s hard to believe it has been as successful as it has,” company president Richard Zamboni told the Toronto Sun in a previous interview from his office in Paramount, Calif.Īyres went from his Zamboni machine perch at the Mattamy Centre in Toronto (old Maple Leaf Gardens) to Hockey Hall Of Fame recognition in barely 28 minutes as the 43-year-old stepped in as an emergency goalie for the Carolina Hurricanes in a win over the Leafs. For nine decades, it has been the first on the ice every day and last off, still doing laps around everyone. Trailing the bulky beast with its top speed of 15.6 km/h, there’s a surprising history, a lot of water under the blade.
#ICECAT ICE RESURFACER DRIVER#
Since David Ayres has cast the humble Zamboni machine driver in a heroic light, time for a close-up of the iconic ice-grooming machine that’s melded in hockey culture.
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