Watching the Zamboni driver during Saturday night’s Cougars game, I couldn’t help wondering if the driver was a failed hockey hopeful.
There are those “I want to drive the Zamboni” ads on the tube, so you always have to wonder about the Zamboni driver. One thing I do know is that the life of the ice-cleaner has improved over the years. I guess we can thank Mr. Zamboni for that.
Cleaning the ice used to be a major production, at least where I grew up. The 15 minutes between periods was just enough time for a rather labour-intensive cleaning of the ice. It all started with an arena employee taking a house broom and sweeping the snow away from the base of the boards.
Then there was a legion of ‘rink rats’ armed with push brooms who would push the snow into the centre of the ice. From there, it would take group effort from the rink rats to push the snow to one end where a couple more people, armed with grain shovels, would scoop the snow off the ice into a big hole at the end of the rink where it would melt and the water would then be recycled.
That was the easy part.
One (un)lucky city employee (it was always a guy named Luigi Fierro when I was a kid), would be tasked with flooding the ice. (If Zamboni was Italian, there might have been a connection because Luigi was Italian through-and-through, with accent to match. He always called me ‘Beel.’)
But back to my story. Luigi was the Zamboni. If his contraption would have taken off, perhaps Fierro would be synonymous with cleaning ice between hockey games. However, given the chore it was, it’s not surprising that it never took off.
The ice-flooder (for lack of a better term) was an old oil drum that was laid horizontal and had sleigh runners welded onto it. The barrel was filled with steaming hot water. Through a tap at the back end the water would slowly flow into two canvas troughs, that were each about six feet wide, attached to the barrel.
The water would flow through the canvas and flood the ice.
Luigi had a metal grip that he would tie onto one foot so he wouldn’t slip as he, singlehandedly and walking backwards all the way, would haul the barrel around the ice until the rink was completely flooded. It was an art not to flood too much of the ice at the beginning and then, conversely, have enough water at the end to make sure all of the ice surface was flooded.
All this, the sweeping and the flooding, had to take place during the 15 minutes between periods.
Things have certainly changed. If the Zamboni driver ever says he’s got it rough, just tell to be thankful he isn’t driving a Fierro.