Short Stuff: Zambonis! | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff where. you. been is that our new slogan I guess okay. I like it okay let's move forward maybe. they've been cutting ice yeah maybe. riding around in a Zamboni because. that's what you call those things no. matter what. right uh that's true an ice resurfacer. or a resurfacing machine uh it is a. retary eponym Zamboni much like Band-Aid.

uh it is the name of one company but it. seems like there are two big big players. uh among the ice resurfacing Juggernaut. that is Zamboni and then the Olympia uh. which is made by the resurface corp. Corporation yeah but they cleverly. spelled resurface with a i instead of a. a at the end so res surfice yeah love it. I love it and zamb p is named after a.

single Visionary man technically three. men two I guess let's just go with Frank. Frank J Zamboni is widely credited as. the inventor of the Zamboni or the ice. resurfacing machine uh and the reason. why is because he invented it that's. right uh we go back to 1940 when uh. Frank Zamboni and Lawrence Zamboni his. brother and their uh cousin said hey. let's open up an ice skating rink uh. we're in the ice business anyway we have. an ice and Refrigeration plant so we.

know how to make plenty of ice let's. just spread that out over a floor and. contain it and charge people to skate on. it yeah they said that's a really good. idea apparently it was extremely popular. um the problem is is when you have. people skating on a rink of Ice uh it. gets cut up pretty quickly there's like. divots and scratches and it's just it. looks terrible it looks messy so you. want to make it look good again and you. have to resurface it and resurfacing is. a process it's actually what zambonis do.

as we'll see but originally before the. Zamboni was invented for the first. couple years that they own the ice rink. Frank and Lawrence and the unnamed. cousin uh had to do this by hand yeah so. they would get a tractor that would drag. like a blade that would kind of like. shave the top of the ice then you had. people following in the in the tractor's. wake cleaning up ice shavings wetting. the ice again uh and then taing it up to. make it smooth and the whole thing with. take like an hour and a half just for.

this one ring yeah it's pretty bad uh. and I know you I think you were joking. when you said it looks terrible so they. need to make it look good uh the problem. with chopped ice of course is you can't. skate on it very well at all well that. too yeah so yeah taking way too long uh. too much uh human. hours too many hands involved so Frank. was like Hey listen I I was born into a. a family that uh made and worked on. farming equipment I know how to make. stuff and fix stuff and so I'm going to.

build a machine and so Frank Zamboni. built the model a Zamboni ice. resurfacer in. 1949 look up a picture of this thing. when you get a chance it's yeah it's. really cool looking it looks like you. would think a model a Zamboni might look. which is to say kind of like an Army. jeep uh with a big wooden bin on top of. it and uh it looks like a little a. little mechanical ladder I guess that. brought ice up yeah so the reason it.

looked like a Jeep is because it was. built on top of a Jeep chassis they. basically just cut the top off and built. the rest of the Zamboni on top of it. they also used parts from an oil Derek. and the hydraulic cylinder from A. Douglas aircraft fighter plane and I. don't know if we mentioned or not but. Frank Jay Zamboni was a mechanical. genius yeah I did okay good well I. second that um so this was 1949 that was. the first amboni and what's interesting. is the ads clearly show essentially what.

look like would have been the Prototype. you know yeah um so that's what the. first zambonis were like so it took a. few years to really catch on um but they. had some pretty big customers because. what they were doing was providing a a. solution that was way more widespread. than you probably would have thought. anybody who made any kind of money from. ice skating on ice really was facing all. these same problems so the idea of a. machine that could do this in a fraction. of the time at a fraction of the the.

human hours um that was that was a big. advancement in the field yeah I know you. know when people complain about machines. taking over jobs that people did you. know sometimes it's a really good idea. yeah no one was complaining about this. one no uh some of their early clients. were the Boston Bruins and the Chicago. Blackhawks of the NHL yeah uh figure. skater Sonia hiny of course MH and uh in. 1967 they said things are going so well. we're going to open up a second Factory.

uh in. Ontario H cuz they were they were. turning out those zambonis at at a. pretty good clip uh even though it's the. kind of thing that requires a lot of. Maintenance though it's usually the kind. of thing you hope to buy once yeah and. one of the things that seems to have. really kind of boosted the company's. image is they were the official ice. resurfacer for the 1960 Winter Olympics. in squa Valley um and that really I. think kind of sealed the deal for. everybody uh and then they also were um.

they went to the Soviet Union with ice. capades in 1967 too so the 60s were a. big decade for the Zamboni company. should we take a break yeah because. we're gonna come back because there's. plenty of decades after the 60s that's. right we'll be right back. [Music].

so since those early zambonis they've. changed uh quite a bit ice resurfacers. in general over the years uh just gotten. better and better they're still making. improvements uh there's there's one. coming down the pike soon that's even. more advanced than the last oh yeah uh. oh sure they're always trying to make. these things a little bit better run a. little cleaner that's so. Zamboni so how these things actually. work is um exactly sort of how they did.

it by hand but a machine is doing it uh. you're basically just giving the the. surface of the ice a shave uh with a. blade uh the bra the blade is about 77. to 96 in depending on the size of uh the. size of the machine and the NHL says. just give me a real close trim like a. 132nd of an inch down you don't have to. scrape too much uh and the total ice. from an an NHL rink let's say.

uh that you would scrape off is about 60. cubic. feet Yes and on either side of the blade. are up to four Comfort strips that give. a close and comfortable shave not buying. that one uh so the the that's generally. like the the main thing that's going on. you're trimming the ice but the problem. is when you trim ice there's still. little divots um it's it's just it's not. smooth necessarily it's just uniform.

so what the Zamboni does is it sprays. water uh out in front of the blade and. that water is picked up by the Zamboni. itself kind of mixed up I think with the. water or the snow that it picks up or. the ice it generates you just call it. snow and then out of the rear they put. down new water warm water that remelts. the ice and then they have essentially a. squeegee at the back that Smooths the. whole thing over which if if that sounds. familiar that is what humans did they. just figured out how to put all those. things into a machine yeah and you know.

what it's even better than that okay. because that snow that they're picking. up gets melted and goes into a tank and. gets washed to be reused it's a a. beautifully elegant sort of closed loop. system that makes sense because it's. you're you're cleaning up the ice you're. collecting it as snow as ice shavings. and then you're laying down more water. to refreeze it would make sense to just. make the whole thing as closed a system. as possible yeah and the they're heavy. uh if it's it's full of water again.

depending on the machine you can go. anywhere between 7,000 to 11,000 lbs uh. total weight and they hold anywhere from. 210 or so to about 265 gallons of water. yeah uh one of the things you said that. they are always kind of innovating uh. one of the things that's really become a. thing in uh ice resurfacing world is. electric ice resurfacers which is a. really good step forward because most of. the time they're resurfacing ice in an.

enclosed ice rink and if you've ever. have you ever been to like a skating. rink when they're resurfacing the ice. and it's not an electric sambon yeah I. played hockey for a couple of years okay. so you know the whole place stinks yeah. of of car exhaust and somehow hot. pretzels I don't know how every single. ice rink in the world smells like the. hot pretzels that they sell it's for. some reason really carries it's a very. distin smell I love it interesting I.

never noticed that check check it out. next time I'll bet I'll bet you'll be. like oh my God it really smells like hot. pretzels in here I haven't skated in a. while I got pretty good for a little. while but it's been a minute did you. yeah we we got into it locally here like. a friend of mine worked at a rink mhm. and they had called uh they called it. stick time which is basically like after. hours hockey players could pay like 10. bucks to go up there and just play like. pickup games cool and so we all kind of. got in into it and got gear and uh I was.

never any good at it but I got to where. I could skate okay a little bit and move. around a little bit yeah it's very hard. I was a shameful skater considering I. grew up in Ohio where ponds just froze. completely solid all the time yeah weak. ankles I. guess uh so Zamboni we mentioned it. being a proprietary eponym uh that kind. of giveth and taketh away uh because. it's great when people just call any ice. resurfacer Zamboni not so great when you.

don't win the contract to the Winter. Olympics which is what happened in 2010. in Vancouver when those Olympia machines. won the contract and those machines. malfunctioned yeah and all over the news. they're talking about the fact that the. zambonis aren't working yeah and zambon. actually released a press release saying. like hey those are not Zamboni brand. machines and in fact zambonis got. trucked in to to finish the job after.

the Olympia um machines just stopped. working I I guess it was just a. catastrophe I read a um like an. interview from the time and it was like. like this is you're on the world stage. and your stuff is not working well so. the Olympics are on hold right now. because your machine isn't doing the job. I was trying to picture a uh like an a. press conference instead of just a press. release MH where they were like you know. uh we shut down now we want to make it. clear these are not zambonis these are.

just these are ice resurfacers they are. not zambonis and the Press is like right. right but what's actually wrong with the. zambonis they're like no no no no they. they aren zambonis right just over and. over and over and he gets so like. frustrated that his nose starts bleeding. and goes somebody hand me a Kleenex oh. my God amazing so Chuck I say we wrap. this whole one up because we basically. reached the end here don't you think uh. yeah I mean just uh we should mention. price these things are very very. expensive mhm uh the the cheapest one.

that you actually need a tractor to drag. this thing around is uh about 10 grand. and I saw Zamboni say that they can they. can go up above 500,000. sometimes wow that's the goldplated one. if you look up Zamboni price there are a. lot of Articles from like smaller towns. like Civic organizations that are saying. like you know do we have. $165,000 to allocate Jord Zamboni for. our city.

rank that's a I mean yeah that's a lot M. expenditure yeah yeah the most expensive. one only functions with Avon that has. been used to wash Shannon Dow's hair. that's why it's so expensive I'm not. buying that either uh so I say short. stuff's out what do you say I say it's. out stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart radio for more. podcasts iHeart Radio visit the iHeart. Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you. listen to your favorite shows.

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