A Zamboni Story
A makeshift Zamboni that looks like a golf cart, a hot tin roof, and the quest for Zamboni parts. These are the issues maintaining an ice rink faces in Auckland.
Avondale, NZ — Just drive 12 kilometres outside of Auckland’s city centre and you’ll be taken to Paradice. Yes, that’s how New Zealand’s first Olympic-sized ice rink spells its name.
Walk through the doors and you’ll likely hear music echoing through while people of all ages skate on ice illuminated by the disco lights above.
Paradice Ice Skating has been around in Auckland for almost 40 years, but it still faces challenges accommodating ice hockey.
The locker rooms on the other side, a rarity in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League, shake as children finish up their public skating session. The West Auckland Admirals shake it off as they prepare for their training later that night. They’ve had worse disruption from up there. Sometimes, rowdy fans at games will spill their beer and it seeps through the cracks and into the locker room. A little shake from the local children isn’t anything to them.
But the tin roof heating up in the summer? That is something.
New Zealand’s sun is unlike anything Justin Daigle has ever felt in his life.
“I tell this to my friends back home, and they don’t believe me,” the Calgary native said. “But there’s something like, it just feels like you’re burning and it’s like 10 minutes in. If you have no sunscreen on, you’re burnt in 10 minutes, 100 percent. It’s crazy. Like it packs a serious punch.”
Auckland’s subtropical climate leaves the ice stickier than usual in the summer months of January and February. But even during the winter in late July, the ice conditions didn’t hold up well.
“In Auckland, the climate will change instantly. We can have all seasons in one day,” Admirals defenceman Nick Craig said. “With these guys trying to control that and control the temperatures in the air and keep the ice right, last night it didn’t do so well.”
Player feedback is a necessary step in improving the ice, especially when the rink isn’t used to high level ice hockey. Admirals forward Dave Nippard said the team will comment on the quality if it’s not up to their standards.
“I think they’ll get better over time,” he said. “Having player feedback definitely helps out, it provides insight into what should be and what it shouldn’t be.”
Paradice at least has what other rinks in New Zealand might not have: a Zamboni less than four years old.
The Alpine Ice Sports Centre in Christchurch doesn’t have that luxury. The home to the Canterbury Red Devils features an old, diesel-powered machine.
“You go down there and think, ‘Oh, this is crazy. It’s definitely a minority sport down here,’” Craig said.
Even with the newer Zamboni, issues still come about.
When it breaks down, the whole rink suffers. Public sessions, the rink’s main source of income, sometimes are cancelled due to long wait times for parts overseas. The Admirals also deal with the effects.
“It really wrecks us trying to train and it could be a week that the ice is just terrible,” Craig said.
Enter the short-term solution.
When they’re desperate to resume public sessions and trainings, they whip out a Zamboni-golf cart hybrid with a hose and scrapebox attached to it.
“I’ve seen it used once in the six years I’ve been here, and it was pretty funny. It takes them like an hour and a half to scrape the ice,” Daigle said.
On top of that, few people know how to fix a Zamboni.
Luckily, a familiar face is nearby.
Former Admirals captain Robert Chamberlain, whose №12 jersey hangs up in Paradice, now owns a mechanic shop down the road.
“He’s one of the only people in Auckland that would know what the hell is going on with the Zamboni,” Daigle said.
But even the nicest Zamboni isn’t a match for the Kiwi sun and the tin roof of the rink.
“In the rink, the ice just goes so soft, and then sometimes it won’t even freeze overnight, it will stay with that top layer of water. On the really hot days, it’s not ideal, that’s for sure,” Daigle said. “But I know that in Paradice, the people here continue to try to do what they can to keep ice quality high, but every summer it happens.”
Kiwi sun: one. Ice: zero.
