Google's home page frequently features interactive and original designs to mark birthdays, news stories and famous cultural events.
The website offered another one of those on Wednesday, marking the birthday of Frank Zamboni, the creator of the ice resurfacer vehicle that anyone who watches the NHL knows so well. Google has also put out games for the Olympics and other sporting events.
The main page features an interactive game in which players can use the arrow keys on the computer keyboard to control a small ice machine with the goal of clearing the ice after a skater messes it all up. Players earn points by cleaning up the scratches on the ice, but must watch out for gas levels and other obstacles as the game moves from level to level. Players can also pick up fuel cans for extra range and ice cream cones for bonus points.
The Zamboni name is trademarked for the modern ice resurfacer he created and is used at nearly every hockey event in North America. The vehicle has helped staffs at arenas for NHL teams clear the ice for years.
Zamboni was born in Eureka, Utah on January 16, 1901, the son of Italian immigrants. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Zamboni was interested in machinery from a young age and started to work as a mechanic. The family later moved to Los Angeles, where Frank's brother opened his own garage in California. Frank worked with his brother and also opened an electrical supply business with a younger brother.
He spent time at Coyne Trade School in Chicago and later his brother Lawrence opened a service company named the Zamboni Bros. Company, while also constructing an ice-making plant to sell big blocks of ice to nearby produce packing plants. In the 1940s, Zamboni helped open an indoor rink called Iceland, in Paramount, California, working to build on the trend of indoor ice skating around the country.
The biggest issue for Zamboni at the time, and the thing that would make him famous later, was the hard time he had keeping the ice clean after people skated on it.
According to the 1988 Los Angeles Times obituary for Zamboni:
"It took five men 90 minutes each night to lay down a new sheet of ice. [Frank] Zamboni devoted the next eight years to replacing those five men and, when he did, it was with a machine only its mother could love. The awkward Model A Ice Resurfacer No. 1 sat on two old Dodge front ends and was powered by a war surplus jeep engine. A wooden bin caught the ice shavings. Despite its appearance, it resurfaced the ice in 15 minutes after scraping it, gathering up the shavings, washing the surface and then laying down a coat of fresh hot water that was spread by a towel."
According to the Washington Post, "Zamboni built his ice-resurfacing machine by attaching a blade to a tractor, then later using a Jeep chassis. He secured his patent for the machine in 1953. His invention made an international splash at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley."
In 1953 he received the patent for the "Zamboni" or "Model A Ice Resurfacer No. 1" and started selling them to indoor rinks and NHL teams around the country. According to the CSM, "Since the 1970s, the standard Zamboni machine has been the 500 series, which boasts a liquid-cooled engine; an "emission-free" Model 560AC electric resurfacer is also available."
There has been some Zamboni accidents and incidents in the past during NHL games and other hockey contests, including during the 2009 Winter Classic. Over the years, many athletes trained at the original Iceland rink, including Olympic gold medalist Peggy Fleming, silver medalists Sasha Cohen and Dianne DeLeeuw, and Olympians JoJo Starbuck and Kenneth Shelley.
In 2006, Zamboni was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and also had the distinction of joining the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009, becoming one of the only inductees to be enshrined without playing hockey.
According to the Guardian, "Today, the Zamboni company has sold more than 10,000 units of its signature piece of equipment, the Zamboni Ice Resurfacer."
The piece of equipment is a cultural touchstone and has been referenced in the TV show "Cheers" and in the comic "Peanuts". According to the LA Times, Charles Schulz, the creator of the strip, was a former hockey player who owns his own ice rink in Santa Rosa and wrote a strip that featured the Zamboni as a punch line.
"I don't think the coach likes me," the Beagle responds. "He told me to stand in front of the Zamboni."
Zamboni died from cancer in 1988 at the age of 87. Zamboni would have turned 112 in 2013 and his invention is one of the most recognizable and well known devices when it comes to sports.
