The Zamboni®, named after it's creator Frank J. Zamboni, is the large apparatus that resurfaces the ice before, during and after practices and games. In the old days, a scraper would be dragged behind a tractor which was driven on the ice. People would manually shovel away the shavings, squeegee the ice clean, and spray water from a hose to build up new ice. Obviously this took a while and was inefficient. That's when Frank decided to change the world of ice maintenance.
- First, the blade 1 shaves the ice surface, flattening it.
- The horizontal screw conveyors 2 gather the shavings and direct them toward the center of the machine, where it meets the vertical screw conveyor 3.
- The vertical screw conveyor lifts the shavings and projects them forward into the snow collection tank 4.
- Later, in a dump-truck style fashion the shavings are dumped out of the Zamboni®.
- Next, the conditioner 6 squeegees the ice clean using water from the wash water tank 5, removing dirt and other contaminants from the ice.
- This water is vacuumed up and returned to the wash water tank.
- Last, fresh, hot water from the fresh water tank is applied over the freshly shaved, vacuumed ice by the towel 7.
- This steaming hot water bonds with the current ice layers and melts into and over, providing a nice, new, clean and smooth sheet of ice.
Zamboni® is a registered trademark of Frank J. Zamboni & Co., Inc.