The man who invented the Zamboni | Hacker News Reader

The man who invented the Zamboni

thehustle.co

73 pointsAnon8425 comments

Fond memories here. I was a Zamboni driver from the age of 16 to 19. I was the youngest driver at my local, municipal rink in metro Detroit which had one indoor and one outdoor rink. A pretty good gig that earned me admiration from lots of pint sized aspiring hockey players.

Driving it was fun. It was even more fun when you focused on how fast you could go vs how well the ice was resurfaced. (Did I mention I was 16?!) The mechanics of the machine were also very cool.

Hello fellow former Zamboni driver o/

I'm a full-time SWE now, but I was still working part time at the rink pre-COVID because I still enjoyed the physical aspect of non-office work, but of course that's on hold for now. It's definitely the coolest job I've had, and I still list it on my resume because practically half the recruiters/interviewers I talk to are super interested and ask about it, especially if they're hockey fans.

> It was even more fun when you focused on how fast you could go vs how well the ice was resurfaced.

What do you mean the figure skaters complained? I actually think skating on speed bumps is way more fun!

Okay boss, yes boss, I'll make sure to go slower boss.

I, too, have driven a Zamboni in a past life. It's pretty fun.

That would have been a plum job. I grew up in SE Michigan, and high school hockey was bigger than football.

What a great gig that must have been!

Another SE Michigan native here. Grew up going to hockey games at Yost and Munn while, of course, rooting for the Red Wings. Lots of good memories!

> As the great sage Charlie Brown once said: “There are 3 things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice.”

https://youtu.be/vn2h6SKLXOY

I literally didn't know that Zamboni was a brand name and thought all ice resurfacers were Zambonis until a week or so ago they're that dominate in that market.

For me, reading about a zamboni causes always a short thinking pause to identify its meaning, as in Czech, we call a zamboni a "rolba", because of... a name of a Swedish company. (This process is called genericization or apellativization.)

What strikes me about this story is how organically they grew their business, using the proceeds from fulfilling relatively prosaic market needs (first ice, then ice-skating rink, etc.) to fund the development of adjacent competencies. The lengthy time to market acted as a positive change agent, working hand in glove with the minute attention to detail refining the product to market fit, building a moat of competency before debuting. Instead of cutting 90 minutes to 60 with a machine that only scraped down the surface, the prototype solved the customers' problem in a very comprehensive manner.

I love seeing these kinds of organic growth business stories as they illustrate grit/perseverance, though that kind of business development is terribly out of fashion in the business press these days.

A continuity of small improvement iterations driven by founder and successor. A drastic contrast to the insatiable programme of "so I've won at ice rink maintenance, hand it off to some clerk, let's see where else I can find even bigger profits" that could have been the alternative.

No discussion of Zambonis is complete without a link to the Zamboni song by the Gear Daddies:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BD5oBHGmes8

Oh man if we're doing Hockey songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS3GQverRiQ

Oh boy if we're doing Zambonis Hockey Monkey songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDxy4xuj01Q

I love this story - the fact it was invented in Los Angeles not in Minnesota or Canada etc.

By an Italian immigrant too! Not exactly from a country known for their connection to skating.

(to be fair, I'm Dutch so I can only speak for speed skating, not for ice hockey or figure skating, but I don't expect Italians to be much into that either)

> “There are 3 things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice.”

I've heard what is supposed to be a Russian proverb along these lines:

> Three things does the eyes not get tired of: the water which flows, the fire that burns and seeing people work.

This absolutely sounds like an older quote (if true). Do anyone have any pointers? My cursory search only brought up the Zamboni version.

We have a local rink in our town and I volunteered for years as a "hoser," part of a crew of volunteers that would shovel off the rink late at night and then spray a new layer of ice so that the kids would have a fresh surface in the morning. Every year, without fail, a local engineering student would show up while I was getting setup and ask if they could test their new "backyard Zamboni" on the rink (e.g. some variation on an upside down propane grill on wheels) and I would watch as they learned the painful lesson that there were not 20 MPH winds in the lab.

in related news: first night frost in the Netherlands this year has resulted in the first skating rink opening. In only one night, thanks to a new system based on nebulisers and isolating occluded air cement.

(translated) article :

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=nl&tl=en&u=h...

What is "ice cream club" supposed to be translated as?

I suppose that is the incorrect translation of "speed skating club" (schaats club)

"Zamboni drivers, like athletes, see the Olympics as the pinnacle of their profession." - from a cool 2018 article: "The 22nd-Largest Team at the Olympics: Zamboni Drivers" · https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/sports/olympics/zamboni-d...

If you have kids: Ice Resurfacer song by the Truck Tunes guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqci9VCugLs

Didn't realize it was a family name until now. Part of me thought Charles Schultz invented a silly name for Snoopy's infatuation with driving the ice resurfacing machine.

It's crazy how much the original machines still resemble the latest models. Other than a little styling here and there, they pretty much still look like the original models.

Olympia is actually the largest brand of ice resurfaces, not Zamboni. Or so they claim, I can't find real numbers.

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