Zambonis benched in favor of electric IceCats
Click above for gallery of the IceCat in action
Growing up in Canada, every kid knows what the Zamboni is. But for the poor, deprived children of warmer climes, we'll fill you in. It's not a lunch meat or a pastry you'd find in Little Italy, but the ice resurfacing machine you see put-putting around the rink before, after and in the middle of hockey games. Created by Frank Zamboni in 1949, the company's pretty much had a monopoly on the market ever since. But the times, as Bob Dylan sang from the penalty box, they are a-changin'.
Toronto, Canada's largest city, is slowly phasing out their Zambonis in favor of Finnish-made IceCats (pictured above). So is the National Hockey League. And the reason is carbon monoxide: while the Zambonis run on propane or natural gas, the IceCats are all-electric. In an indoor arena, that can make all the difference: it's no big surprise to read that a study in the American Journal of Public Health determined that replacing carbon-emitting resurfacing machines with electric ones would reduce the concentration of nitrogen dioxide in indoor arenas by 87%, except to wonder where the other thirteen percent is coming from (flatulent spectators?). At a whopping $160,000 apiece – twice the price of a new Zamboni when many skating rinks already have their own – the IceCats aren't cheap (there are only four in all of Canada), but with carbon emissions on everybody's minds, Zamboni may get beaten
Gallery: IceCat Ice Resurfacing Machines
[Source: Wired]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Pdexter 9:12AM (1/03/2009)
Heh, i'm finnish and regularly follow our national hockey league, but i havent ever heard of these before.
With some googling it seems that they are normally used in here, but then i guess it's not a big surpise.
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Kumar 9:17AM (1/03/2009)
Nice timing for this story for those readers in Indy. A few weeks ago a local rink had people get ill. It was traced back to emissions from their zamboni.
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Galley 9:25AM (1/03/2009)
Where I went to college (Univ. of North Dakota), the Zamboni driver was treated like a god.
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Brent 2:13AM (1/04/2009)
I am attending UND now. Go Sioux!
jeff 3:27PM (1/05/2009)
How about "Go WCHA!" or "Down with Gophers!" Mavericks fan here.
I'm pretty sure Zamboni drivers are treated like gods everywhere... at least in hockey towns. If they aren't, they should be.
charles 3:21PM (1/06/2009)
I drive a zamboni part time and I am treated like crap. If their is anyone out their that wants to treat me like a god drop me a line. Also zamboni does or did make zambonis that are electric.
G-Meister 9:34AM (1/03/2009)
most of the time propane powered IC engines are pretty clean. Just going to LEV certified engines with full cat system should solve the problem at a much lower cost. on that note:
Well I went down to the local arena,
And asked to see the manager man.
He came from his office and said,"Son can I help you?"
I looked at him and said "yes you can"
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni, yes I do.
Now ever since I was young its been my dream.
[ Find more Lyrics at www.mp3lyrics.org/bcu ]
That I might drive the Zamboni machine.
I'd get that ice just as thick as can be.
And all the kids would look up to me.
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni.
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni,yes I do.
Now the manager said "Son I know it looks keen,
but that right there's one expensive machine.
And I've got Smokey who's been driving for years."
'Cause I want to drive the Zamboni.
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni,
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni,
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni, yes I do.
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Sea Urchin 9:35AM (1/03/2009)
So healthy competition never hurt anyone. Next step is for Zaboni to make its own electric ice maker that is much more affordable.
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alex 10:59AM (1/03/2009)
Zamboni has made electrics for a long time... Unless they discontinued them. I play at several rinks with electric zambonis
tankd0g 2:15AM (1/04/2009)
As usual, autoblog gets half the story. http://www.zamboni.com/machines/model552.html
SITEiNK 9:52AM (1/04/2009)
They [Autoblog] do this [leave out half the story] on purpose to get people commenting. It's an effective little trick. If they only wrote what you agreed with 100%, there would be few if any comments. And that doesn't look good in front of sponsors. Sometimes they also offer to sell parts of their stories out to the highest bidder. Could it be that Zamboni didn't want in?
----------------
http://www.ROCKandREVIEW.com/
JP 4:09PM (1/06/2009)
They already do and have for at least 10 years. No homework done on the article.
Hamud 9:46AM (1/03/2009)
Guess there's something beside the emission behind this change...
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Widefoot 10:21AM (1/03/2009)
For indoor rinks, a "corded" AC conversion of IC Zamboni's might be a relatively
inexpensive way to cut indoor emissions. With the small and open area that
needs to be covered, either a simple trailing cord or a suspended cable could
carry the ~40KW needed. Much cheaper and easier than doing a battery
conversion.
David
cereal2k 12:04AM (1/11/2009)
This is classic . LOL.
"but with carbon emissions on everybody's minds, Zamboni may get beaten by the Finnish line."
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Madcars 10:37AM (1/03/2009)
There is a community club just down the road from me that has one of these.
We do not have an NHL team in the city but one of our own small city run club has one, so I think there might be more than 4 of them kicking around.
my 2 cents
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Jack 10:59AM (1/03/2009)
They already have electric zambonis all over the place. what is the big deal???
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why not the LS2LS7? 11:01AM (1/03/2009)
Zamboni has offered their electric model (the 552) for quite some time. I don't know if anyone buys it.
These electric resurfacers have a basic problem. That is, they save the most emissions (i.e. make the biggest impact on air quality) when they are used most often. But as we've discussed a zillion times on here, recharging takes time. At the local rink, the Zambonis run every 1-2 hours. So you need to charge them up more rapidly than that. Worse yet, they have multiple zambonis (they have multiple surfaces) and if one breaks down, others have to run even more often to carry the load.
This would work better at rinks that run the Zamboni less frequently, but then they save less on emissions. Also, places that do the most business can most afford these things and have the least use for them.
Also in this downturn, I think rinks are more interested in saving money by buying cheaper Olympia machines than going upscale on electrics.
http://www.resurfice.com/
Finally, look at a power edger.
http://www.zamboni.com/machines/gaspropaneedger.html
These are used to clean up the edges of the ice once a day. They don't even run on propane, they run on gas! I'd say that's a big source of NOx and other pollutants you don't want. And since they run only once a day they might be a better candidate for electrifying. You could even maybe run them on an extension cord since they are mostly used near the walls. Zamboni offers one of these in electric I think.
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Jim 12:53PM (1/03/2009)
"
Also in this downturn, I think rinks are more interested in saving money by buying cheaper Olympia machines than going upscale on electrics."
I like how Olympia talks about their "aerodynamic" resurfacers. Like it matters for something moving at 2 mph ;)
tankd0g 2:15AM (1/04/2009)
I think this is one of the rare cases where the electric vehicle makes more sense for the smaller operation than the large one. Large rinks have good ventilation systems, small local rinks usually do not. I can't see the NHL going with these unless they want to blow and extra 10 million dollars just to appear green so they can be the darling of the wankers at ABG for a day. Zamboni has a machine for them if they want to do it. I agree this is another one of the many posts on AB that looks like a slyly crafted ad from the company.