Slice, smooth, rinse, repeat.  That’s the recipe for the smooth ice in Drake Arena.  Drake employees John Cole and Eric Edhlund go on the rink every day to keep the ice usable.  They’re aided by Drake’s trusty ice resurfacer, better known by the brand name Zamboni.

    Drake’s Zamboni 55P Electric model has served skaters at the arena for eight years.  Cole and Edhlund take it out at least once every day, and up to fifteen times on weekends.  The job is “highly coveted,” according to Cole, “but we’re in the business of selling ice, so we do quite a bit of it.”

    The machine itself is something of a curiosity.  The Zamboni was constructed from spare parts in a Wisconsin plant.  “It’s a little bit of a Zombie Zamboni,” Edhlund said.

The Zamboni is mostly comprised of parts from around 1988, but “it has parts from the ‘90s and ‘70s,” Edhlund said.  Despite its medley of components, the Zamboni is at the peak of modernity.  A huge battery supplies all of the Zamboni’s power, so it emits no gases.  “This is a small building for an ice rink, so having zero emissions makes it that much safer,” Cole said.

Fortunately for the Zombie Zamboni, the formula for ice resurfacing hasn’t changed much over the years.  “There’s a lot of pieces to it, but it’s really a very simple machine,” Cole said.  The Zamboni’s speed maxes out at around twelve miles an hour, but it almost never goes that fast.  “It doesn’t slow down fast,” he added, so it’s impractical and dangerous to go too fast.  The Zamboni uses a three-quarter inch blade to cut a layer off the ice, which it then tosses into an enormous bin.  “We change [the blade] out about once every week and a half,” Cole said.  The areas near the boards, which are difficult to reach, are smoothed out with enormous and coarse spinning brushes attached to arms that extend from the side.  When all the ice has been cut, jets of water are sprayed onto the ice and mopped up to keep the ice even.  When all this is done, the bin is emptied with a hydraulic lift, resulting in piles of snow outside Drake.  All these parts add up to a lot of weight.  “You don’t want to go ice fishing with it, that’s for sure,” Edhlund quipped.

    The Zamboni’s awesome power is a draw to students.  Cole and Edhlund receive requests for rides every year.  “We’ve talked about it, but…there’s liability.  It has a lot of moving parts,” Cole said.  Though the Zamboni hasn’t ever caused problems, Cole and Edhlund are prepared in case it does.  The Zamboni’s horn is designated for emergency situations.  “When you’re driving [the Zamboni,] it gets a little noisy, Edhlund said, so it’s important that the horn is used to communicate a message.  While the horn can be fun to honk, in Drake it’s used exclusively as a communication tool.  Safe skating and safe resurfacing come first at Drake.

    Driving the Zamboni entails a lot of work and a lot of know-how, but it’s not a bad job.  “We actually have quite a bit of fun here,” Cole said.  “It’s a job, nonetheless, but when you do something that you love, it’s a lot of fun.”  And who wouldn’t love it?