Saturday, December 26, 2009

Bad Juju in the Zamboni Jersey...

Well it wasn't such a good intro for my fancy new Zamboni jersey that I got for Christmas. If you were there, you know the Cyclones played hard but came up short AND I had another Propane Nightmare. The crew salvaged a tank of propane off a fork lift, and the valve promptly froze when I switched to that tank.

I guess I'll have to retire the jersey until the Cyclones win at home again.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Not Much to Report

Your intrepid Zamboni driver is anxiously awaiting the Christmas celebrations and then the return to home ice hockey Saturday 12/26.

I am getting rather tired of having to reject the sudden onslaught of SPAM comments being made on blog posts for hookers, pills, get rich schemes, and did I mention hookers & pills?

Might have to turn comments off completely; but I've always wished I got more comments and some discussion about Zambonis and ice making.

The same goes for Twitter, half of all new "followers" have 1 tweet, 0 followers, and are following hundreds. Their one tweet refers you to their website where they are not selling sex, but rather "time and companionship only" and any sexual contact is purely a coincidence between consenting adults. Sheesh.

Stupid SPAM. The Internet not as fun of a place as it once was. Watch what your kids are looking at online!

End of rant.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

10,000 Strong

This first person to read this post will be the 10,000th person to read this blog.

Thanks for everyones' support.

Guido

Friday, December 04, 2009

Wetness 12-4-09

Astute observers in the 3611 fans who enjoyed tonight's win over the Everblades may have noticed the ice appearing wet, especially in the second period. That was caused by a convergence of bad luck. You may also have noticed that your humble neighborhood Zamboni driver was not there until the second period. I had another commitment so I had to be late, leaving John the Operations Manager stand in for me.

As previously mentioned, John has a lot of show experience but not a lot of ice experience, so he's learning. Tonight's ice was especially challenging, especially for a newer driver. I guess the wet weather had the ice a little soft. It's also a little too thick in spots, causing an insulation effect to actually work against the ice freezing up. When it gets like this, the cuts are very slushy and the driver has to be careful not to lay too much water. This just adds to the slush, leaves the ice wet, and causes slush build-up in the conditioner and conveyors.

So, John inadvertently put down too much water. Actually it would be better phrased that he put down too much for the conditions; ordinarily that should have been fine. For the second intermission cut, I barely laid any water and the ends were still wet at the end of overtime.

For the shootout cut, I lowered the blade an extra turn of the wheel for maximum cutting. Since the shootout cuts are dry (no water) I cut it extra deep to really leave them smooth, hard ice. I nearly filled the snow tank on just 4 passes down the ice (I raise the blade when making the turn-around). Tonight after the post-game skate, John has the task of taking two more full tanks of snow off the ice. This will cut out that soft top layer and expose good hardened ice. Then it will sit overnight with the outside temp near freezing which will help tremendously.

This should be resolved for Redsfest night on Saturday. It's all just part of dealing with the ever-dynamic nature of a sheet of ice covering nearly 17000 square feet.

More good news - Kalamazoo lost again tonight so the Cyclones are within 1 point of Kalamazoo for first place in the division.

Another Big Win Over Kalamazoo

Wednesday's win over Kalamazoo was another huge victory. It further instills in our Cyclones that the K-Wings are not invincible. It also takes 2 points from them in the standings. The Wings still have one game in-hand over the Cyclones but we've closed their lead to 2 points. This early in the season, the points race really isn't a big factor but it does show the progress.

Don't get me wrong, K-Zoo is a good team and seem to be the toughest competition in the North Division. The Wings started the season so strong, it was important for the Cyclones to take these last three games to prove to themselves, and everyone, that they are still the real deal.

Attendance is also still excellent. We've slipped to 9th place but compared to the first year back that it outstanding. This weekend should bring two good crowds to raise that average even more. 4500 per game is darn respectable, but the more the merrier, eh?