New Ice Re-surfacer hits the ice at Canterbury !

Well, not literally, but for the first time in many, many years, Canterbury Olympic Ice Rink took possession of a brand new Olympia Ice Re-surfacer this month.

How things have changed. I remember when I was learning to play ice hockey every Sunday morning. Duty Manager Frank Cheimenton would hop on his blue tractor (yes tractor), after filling it with piping hot water. He would calmly resurface the ice and we could not wait to get on after he had finished. But there was one thing we had to do first, and that was to scrape the ice shavings into the pit after every lap. It was frustrating but this manual work was a fact of life in the "old days", but well worth the wait as the ice had frozen into this amazing smooth sheet that would have this lovely “crackle’ when you first skated over it.

Now, re-surfacers are all self contained units, many with advanced electronics to operate the hydraulics and large economical engines. There is a unit on the back of the machine called a conditioner that scrapes a small layer of ice from the surface whilst laying water behind (to freeze as a new sheet of ice) all whilst transferring the snow shavings into a big holding bin at the front of the unit to be dumped at the end of the procedure which takes approx 15 minutes.

There are two main suppliers of these machines, the US manufactured Zamboni, and the Canadian branded Olympia.

Both machines serve the same purpose, and that is to make great ice for all skaters to enjoy this fantastic sport. Many overseas machines are detailed with great logos of the home rink or sponsors who pay big dollars to have their company displayed on the re-surfacer. During a hockey game or big competition, the re-surfacer is the most watched item in the arena.

Although Canterbury is known for its great ice, I am confident that we can improve further as we continue to learn about our new "baby"