The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

You could be forgiven for believing that Minnesotans had something to do with inventing the Zamboni. But the celebrated Dr. Seussian vehicle wasn’t invented in the back of an Iron Range machine shop, nor in a Twin Cities garage. Your second guess—somewhere in Canada, right?—would be wrong, too. The home of this icon of winter sports isn’t in the frozen northland at all. To see where Frank Zamboni dreamed up his world-famous ice resurfacer, you’d want to put on some shorts and sunglasses and fly to sunny Paramount, California, just south of Los Angeles.

What? Zambonis are from Southern California?

I double-checked the address because when I got there all I found were warehouse buildings along a bumpy little side street of Paramount. Where was this Wonka factory of the winter-loving world? Given the huge popularity of ice hockey and figure skating in recent years, I half expected to see lines of hardcore fans and toothless hockey players and Michelle Kwan banging on some gilded gate to get a peek at the machines and the people who make them. But the streets were empty, and the buildings were all nondescript industrial fortresses.

Then a couple of young Hispanic workers materialized out of nowhere. They hung several freshly painted blue and white hulks of sheet metal on hooks. As I came around the corner, the sun suddenly broke through the clouds and smiled on three shiny, partially assembled Zambonis. They were lined up and being readied for shipment to China, Austria, and Nebraska.

Richard Zamboni, the son of the founder, gave me the VIP tour of the Zamboni factory. (Perhaps all visiting Minnesotans get the treatment, I thought.) It all began sixty-five years ago, at a skating rink just a few blocks away known as Iceland. Richard’s father, Frank Zamboni, was a refrigeration expert. In 1940, he was thinking big thoughts for a cooling guy: He had a dream to create an enormous open-air rink in Paramount. The tropical sun and dry winds fast proved that Southern California was no place for outdoor ice skating. The short-term solution, Richard recalled, was to skate at night. “Iceland was covered in canvas during the day, and then they’d pull it off at night and we’d all go skating.” The rink surface was cooled by machinery at a huge refrigeration plant across the street, which also stored locally grown carrots and rhubarb.

Richard said that ammonia, the main chemical coolant in the antique system, was run in lines under the streets. “Back then you could do anything and get away with it,” he said. Resurfacing Iceland’s rink the traditional way—with a leaky barrel of hot water, shovels, and mops—cut down on precious ice time. It was a problem at ice sheets everywhere, but especially in the warm Southern California night; even the most devout hockey player or fan would be hard pressed to wait an hour between periods while the ice was cleaned, flooded, and refrozen.

In 1942, Frank rigged up a little tractor with a trailer that smoothed the ice and scooped up the shavings. The prototype machine hardly worked at all, and Zamboni was eager to perfect his brainchild. But with the attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, and America gone to war, ice resurfacing was not exactly a national priority. Zamboni redirected his work, but the idea to finish his ice-making machine was never far from his mind.

Richard said his dad never would have finished the project if people hadn’t told him it was impossible. When the war ended, army surplus offered plenty of cheap parts—especially sheet metal and Jeep components—to complete what became the world’s first working Zamboni. But in some ways, the Zamboni was never complete because Frank never stopped working on it. “He was a dedicated smoker and he’d go outside and just look at the machine,” Richard said. “My dad drove me crazy because he’d change the design each time we had a new machine. He didn’t get past the ninth grade, and he thought he was educationally challenged. But he was really a genius at design.”

Basically, Jeep chassis were stripped and built back up. The job of a Zamboni is to shave the ice to a depth of one-sixteenth of an inch with a stainless steel blade. The shavings are then gathered to the middle with huge augers. From there, the snow is conveyed by little paddles on a chain up into the holding tank—the sort of whale’s head that dominates the machine. Directly behind the blades and augurs, water heated to 180 degrees is sprinkled onto the ice surface. A chamois distributes the water evenly behind the machine, and the rink’s refrigeration coils freeze the water within minutes. Pointing to the wheels of a classic Model J Zamboni from the late 1960s, Richard said, “We took the Jeep tires over to a shop and they scarfed off all the good tread. Then we put crushed walnut shells on the tires to make them grip the ice.”

As a self-styled Renaissance man of automotive machines, Frank Zamboni didn’t limit his creativity to ice resurfacing; he branched out into many less well-known Zamboni vehicles. The Zamboni Gopher Digger dug trenches, the Zamboni Track Dryer mopped up after a rain on running tracks, and the Astro Zamboni laid down Astroturf in domed stadiums. Richard remembered testing the Astro Zamboni by turning the streets next to the factory into plush, green, temporary lawns. The company also produced the Zamboni Vault Carrier, which lugged concrete cemetery vaults and dropped them in the ground, and “the Black Widow,” which was designed to push dirt into the grave.

Many of these side projects were abandoned, though, when it became clear that the Zamboni name would forever be associated intimately with the ice rink. In 1950, Norwegian figure-skating champion Sonja Henie bought two Zambonis, which went on tour with her ice skating revue.

The Number Four Zamboni had an even more eventful career. First it traveled with Ice Capades in the fifties, and then, at the height of the Cold War, it was sold to Los Alamos National Laboratory to keep our atomic scientists happy and healthy on their days off. In February 1973, the Los Alamos rink caught fire, and the firemen were going to let Number Four burn with it. A Zamboni driver named Ted Dunn doused himself with water, entered the burning building, and threw a wet blanket over the Zamboni. He tightened the battery terminals, revved the Zamboni engine, and burst through the burning doors at the vehicle’s top speed of nine miles per hour. Years later, the machine was restored and placed in a museum where it can still be seen today—at the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minnesota.

Since the birth of the Model A Zamboni in 1949, eight thousand of the machines have been hand-built at the factory by about thirty employees. Richard showed me a photo of the celebration the employees had earlier this year for number 8,000—a landmark Zamboni 540 that went to a special team. Earlier this fall, it arrived at Mariucci Arena, home of the University of Minnesota Gophers.

The eight-thousandth Zamboni is, of course, a radical upgrade from the Model A. Zamboni engines today are either electric or gas-powered. Electric engines are a bit more expensive, but they don’t spew the toxic exhaust created by the gas-burning machines. Zambonis today are four-wheel drive and have studded tires for traction around those breakneck curves. Despite being in the business for sixty-five years, Zamboni has never seen the need to sully the dashboard with an odometer or even a speedometer. A standard gas-burning Zamboni runs about fifty-thousand dollars—odometer and speedometer not an option. The Zamboni company does have one minor corporate rival. A company called Olympia sells its machines with a GM chassis at a slightly lower cost. Naturally, Richard feels the quality doesn’t come close to the real Zamboni.

Resurfacing the ice takes less than fifteen minutes, depending on the prowess of the Zamboni driver. Three basic patterns are followed by Zamboni operators: the common double outside loop, the less common figure eight, and the rarely seen crosscut. The hockey world stood aghast as the Minnesota North Stars took the bold step of introducing two Zambonis to resurface one sheet of ice back in the 1970s. The fans were perched on the edges of their seats awaiting a low-speed Zamboni crash on the blue line that never materialized. Today, dueling Zambonis are standard at all pro hockey games. Why? To allow more ice time for those between-period shenanigans.

The Minnesota connection with Zamboni runs deep. Through the mouthpiece of Charlie Brown, St. Paul native Charles Schulz professed in Peanuts, “There are three things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice.” Schulz’s use of “Zamboni” as the punch line in so many Peanuts strips popularized the ice resurfacer like no big-budget advertising campaign could ever have done. Richard Zamboni remembered how people in Northern California, where Schulz lived, would ask him, “What the heck is a Zamboni?” Schulz missed the ice rinks back in Minnesota, so he donated an indoor ice arena to his adopted hometown of Santa Rosa—along with its very own Zamboni.

The other Minnesotan who has cemented the Zamboni’s image in the public consciousness is singer-songwriter Martin Zellar. When he was still the leader of the Austin, Minnesota, roots-rock band the Gear Daddies, Zellar wrote the whimsical “Zamboni Song” about every boy’s dream to smooth that ice like a pro in front of thousands of adoring rink rats.

Well I went down to the local arena

Asked to see the manager man

He came from his office, said, “Son, can I help you?”

I looked at him and said, “Yes, you can ...”

I want to drive the Zamboni ... hey

I want to drive the Zamboni ... Yes I do!

Now ever since I was young it’s been my dream

That I might drive a Zamboni machine

I’d get the ice just as slick as could be

And all the kids would look up to me

I want to drive the Zamboni ... hey

I want to drive the Zamboni ... Yes I do!

Now the manager said, “Son, I know it looks keen

But that right there is one expensive machine

And I’ve got Smokey who’s been driving for years.”

About that time I broke down in tears.

Cause I want to drive the Zamboni ... hey

I want to drive the Zamboni ... Yes I do!

 

It was originally a hidden track on the 1990 album Billy’s Live Bait. Zellar had dashed it off in a few playful moments as a kind of musical joke. But years later, the song became a surprise hit—first on the soundtrack to the Walt Disney film The Mighty Ducks, and then Mystery, Alaska, and then through the National Hockey League, where it is played at almost every pro hockey game on the schedule. “I heard that he put his kids through college because of that song,” Richard Zamboni said with just a hint of envy. “Well, we wish him the very best.”

“The notion that I’ve profitted handsomely from that song is something of a myth,” Marty Zellar told me. “The Gear Daddies version probably isn’t even the most familiar version, to most people. It was since recorded by some hockey novelty band that has probably made more money off it than I have, and without ever giving us credit. These guys have actually toured hockey arenas playing that song. It’s gotten a lot of exposure, but it really hasn’t translated into a windfall.”

Driving the Zamboni may look like it’s just spinning circles on the ice, but the hazards are many. Walt Bruley, a self-described “Zamboni man,” resurfaces the ice at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, home ice of the University of Minnesota–Duluth Bulldogs. Bruley drives the “Waste Management Zamboni,” which is painted like one of that company’s garbage trucks. He warned of the pitfalls of pucks, broken sticks, and items that fans throw on the ice—all of which can badly foul up the machine. Bruley told me, “Every once in a while, the nails from the boards, which used to be made of plywood, would pop out with the puck bouncing around, and we’d puncture the tires on the Zamboni.”

“I could teach you how to drive it in a day, but it takes two to three years’ experience to master it,” Bruley said. “It’s so unnatural because you can’t see. You have this big massive thing in front of you and you’re expected to hit a mark without being able to see it. I try not to get too happy out there because then you don’t pay attention. Everyone waves and wants me to honk. Never get too happy, always pay attention.”

To prove that resurfacing the ice is serious business, Bruley told me about a group of hockey fans in Section 26 who would heckle him at every game about his Zamboni driving. According to the fans, either Bruley missed a spot, put down too much water, or just drove too slowly. “A guy from the stands one night after the game came down and said, ‘I’ve been watching you do that for twenty-five years. What do I have to do to become a Zamboni man?’ We gave him a job and he slowly learned how to do it and couldn’t believe how hard it is.” The man from the stands now drives a Zamboni—but it took him many months of practice, and many embarrassing mistakes. It was Bruley’s hope that his new charge might go back to his buddies in Section 26 and tell them just how hard it really is.

Richard Zamboni conceded that driving a Zamboni is a refined art. “Take it easy and keep up your momentum and you’ll be fine. But don’t go too fast; it’s a delicate balance.” Then he added, laughing, “I’ve put them through the boards myself a couple of times.”

Zambonis are tested at Iceland, which today is a fully functioning indoor arena. In the past, each new Zamboni that was delivered also came with driving lessons, usually from Frank Zamboni himself. Now a Zamboni training video accompanies each delivery. Richard sat me down in front of a VCR to show me the tape, and within minutes I was dozing. Apparently, I don’t have the right stuff.

My failure was harmless compared to the failures of others. A couple of scofflaws recently violated the Zamboni driver’s solemn oath of seriousness. Last summer, a man was arrested in Morristown, New Jersey, for speeding and driving a Zamboni drunk. (Getting drunk inside a hockey arena is not impossible to believe. But speeding—at nine miles per hour?) After apprehending the man, police were stumped on whether this was actually a crime or not, because a driver’s license isn’t generally required to operate a Zamboni. A few weeks later, another Zamboni driver in Victoriaville, Quebec, was booked with a blood alcohol level nearly four times the legal limit. The Canadian prosecutor, Jean-François Royer, told Toronto’s National Post, “Higher than that and there’s a danger of coma … It’s typically Canuck.” When I asked his opinion of these antics, Richard Zamboni just shook his head sadly and said, “Don’t drink and operate any machinery.”

Taking a Zamboni on a joy ride is the stuff of boyhood dreams, though. Stories abound of hijacked Zambonis from the local ice arena taken to the drive-through at the local Jack in the Box. The most celebrated Zamboni road trip was taken by Canadian Jimmy MacNeil, who traveled coast to coast across Canada during the winter of 2001. It took him four months.

The beloved ice resurfacer inspired Road & Track magazine to run a recent road test of the top-of-the-line Zamboni, which accelerated from zero to nine miles per hour in 6.22 seconds. Anyone who’s been to the arena in the past ten years can see that even the Zamboni has been touched by commercial culture—and it has probably not hurt too much in the looks department. The machine has been the canvas of outrageous paint schemes and advertising gimmicks. And a few years ago, students at Pasadena’s nearby Art Center College of Design were asked to propose how they’d design the Zamboni of the future. “The Los Angeles Kings approached the students and asked them to design something that wasn’t this chunky old block of stuff just going around the ice rink,” Richard Zamboni told me. Suddenly, space-age Zambonis with streamlined designs leaped from the page. Zamboni loved the new blueprints, but they were strictly fantasy; the students were disappointed to hear that the designs didn’t allow enough space for ice collection and hot water tanks.

Because of Zamboni’s near monopoly in the market of ice resurfacing, Zamboni is worried that its name will go the way of “Kleenex,” “Frisbee,” and “Jacuzzi” and that the company will have to struggle to protect its trademark. Company literature—which we’re just getting to now, obviously—points out that Zamboni “is always an adjective. Never a noun … The machine is not ‘a Zamboni,’ it is a ZAMBONI ice resurfacing machine. The name must be capitalized and spelled correctly and should never even remotely be used in a generic sense. Never use ‘Zamboni’ as a verb or in the plural, such as ‘Zambonis.’”

These earnest requests may already be moot, because in many ways “Zamboni” has entered the lexicon. Already, it has appeared in the hallowed pages of Webster’s dictionary, in crossword puzzles, and in your standard deck of Trivial Pursuit cards. A Zamboni solved a crime on CSI, and another one ran over Carla’s husband, Eddie, on an episode of Cheers.

In Southern California, though, many people have still never heard of Zamboni. At home, hardly anyone recognizes Richard Zamboni. But when he ventures north, he’s surprised at the celebrity reception he gets. “Once I was up in Thief River Falls, way up there in northern Minnesota. They had a new machine and split the paint scheme down the middle because it had to be for two teams … At a party, a very nice fellow named Mike introduced me to some friends saying, ‘This is Richard Zamboni.’” Thinking it a joke, someone responded, ‘Oh, and I’m Julius Caesar, too.’” Another especially sharp Minnesotan said, “Oh, so you’re named after the machine?”

Tom Sersha, the executive director of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, summed up the near-mythical status of the machine. “There’s something about the name ‘Zamboni.’ People like it. They like to say it and hear it. It brings smiles to their faces.”

Richard Zamboni seems happy to have his factory in the relative obscurity of Los Angeles. At least the people in Paramount know all about Zamboni. They’re a fairly common sight on city streets. Just so, a Zamboni driver is almost always having too much fun. Richard described how he recently drove the old Zamboni Junior back from Iceland. “As I’m driving on the city streets, I saw a police car.” Richard hunched his shoulders as though he were nervous that he’d be thrown in the clink for his Zamboni joy ride. “The sheriff rolls down his window and just waves at me. I just hope I wasn’t doing anything wrong!”