Becs: Welcome to In the Loop - Tales of the Blade, where we dive into the fascinating and often humorous history of figure skating. Let's introduce this week's hosts.
Evie: Hi, I'm Evie and I'm trying to distract myself from the horror that is the clashing of [Europeans] and US [Nationals] by researching figure skating history. You can find me on Twitter @doubleflutz.
Becs: Hi, I'm Becs and I'm primarily occupied with trying to survive the winter which, given the general state of the world, currently might be a tad optimistic. You can find me on Twitter @becsfer.
Evie: So Becs, you might remember a few months ago I took a crazy dive with Niamh into the history of ice rinks in the Victorian era, with the hog rinks.
Becs: I am haunted. Haunted by the chanting of hog rinks, hog rinks, hog rinks. [Evie laughs]
Evie: It echoes in your nightmares.
Becs: Yes. I wake up in cold sweats.
Evie: Well, don't worry, because I have another exciting ice-related topic for you today. That's right. Today, we're going over the history of the amazing invention known as... the Zamboni.
Becs: [Laughs] Oh my god.
Evie: So Becs didn't know that this was the topic, I've completely sprung this on her.
Becs: Literally this was a managerial trust exercise because usually I'm the producer and I plan and approve everything for the podcast and when Evie, a month ago, was like “Hey Becs, do you want to do a Tales of the Blade together?” I was like “Sure, what's the topic?” and she was like “I'm not telling you.” [Evie laughs.] Alright. Alright, this is true trust right here. I'll just let you plot away while I wait nervously.
Evie: So, how much do you know about the Zamboni, besides the fact that it's present at every single competition and resurfaces the ice?
Becs: You know what? Not very much, other than I'm very charmed by mini Japanese Zamboni races which I hope features here and fun anecdotes of people befriending Zamboni drivers. But pretty much, it's machinery-related, so I'm hopeless. What exciting tales of Zambonis do you have for me?
Evie: Oh I have many. Another actual question before we start - how do you think that they resurfaced the ice before Zambonis? Obviously they had to do it somehow before this amazing machine was created.
Becs: Okay so, given the era before good machinery created - imagine they just put out a local call for all the sad children and abused child labor and had them sob and smooth over the ice with their tears and sweat and poor tortured hands would kind of be my estimation given what an elitist sport it is. [Hosts laugh] Perhaps they had a little more functional fashion to do it.
Evie: So before the Zamboni was made, when the first artificial ice rinks came out and when skating on ponds was a big thing, resurfacing mainly took the form of people basically driving a tractor over the ice with like a scraper behind it which shaved the surface.
Becs: Yeah, that makes sense.
Evie: And then they had 3 or 4 people with scoops that would brush away all of the shavings, and other people that would spray the water hoses and would squeegee all of the dirty water away, but this process took a long time to clean it, scrap it off and let it freeze - it took like an hour to an hour and a half on most rinks, which is not ideal.
Becs: A bit inconvenient. That's definitely one where they're like if we're doing a competition, we wouldn't resurface every two groups. You'd get resurfacing in between events. Resurfacing each day, it's just too much bother.
Evie: Exactly, it's just too much bother. It's a lot of work, and that's time that people could be spent skating on the ice, and it's money lost at the end of the day. So, in the 1920s, the brothers Frank and Lorenzo Zamboni, they were in the business of ice. They were ice whole-sellers - they used to make ice in a factory to use for the packing of products on trains.
Becs: Like commercial production.
Evie: Exactly. Back when freezers weren't a big thing in homes or in most factories, but eventually refrigeration technology improved and the demand for block ice kind of began to shrink so the Zamboni brothers started looking for other ways to capitalize on their expertise with ice because they've got all of this history with making ice, let's do something with that.
Becs: Got to carry on the legacy in some quirky way that actually gets the bills paid.
Evie: Exactly, and so unsurprisingly, they decided to open up an ice rink. They decided to open up the rink known as [Paramount] Iceland in Southern California.
Becs: So they came up with a guinea pig rink to sort of capitalize on the fact that they couldn't sell ice as much to people anymore?
Evie: This is the funny thing, the original rink was open-air - it didn't have any sort of roof inside it, in Southern California, which sounds like a bit of an oversight when you're reading it on paper because it's California. It's going to be warm?
Becs: How often did they get one week out of that? Or was this before extreme climate change and maybe they had a whole four weeks of use?
Evie: Oh boy. But, obviously, they realized their mistake with making it open air and a couple of years later they decided to add a dome roof over the top of it so the ice was improved because apparently it wasn't great when it was open-air - which, you know, is not surprising.
Becs: For ice experts, they seem a little optimistic on its survival rate.
Evie: It's barely above hog rinks in terms of quality basically.
Becs: You're just slight upgrade but no-ones clearly keeling over in awe.
Evie: It might be a bit sloppy, it might not be required thickness or hardness that people need but it doesn't smell like pigs so, that is an improvement. [Becs: We'll take it] We will take this.
Becs: Okay, so they built an ice rink and then...?
Evie: So they built the ice rink, but obviously the resurfacing was used with the tractor method and Frank Zamboni - he thought this was a massive waste of time. This was time that could be spent with people on the ice. So he decided, with his family, to come up with an invention that would do everything in place of a tractor and a couple of dudes. He was like, how can I make a good sheet of ice in a really short period of time. It really wasn't long until he decided to develop his first machine. So, in March of 1942, he bought a tractor and started experimenting and his first attempt was basically a big sled towed behind a tractor.
Becs: What? Was the sled just basically smoothing the ice out behind it so you didn't need people as much? Or did you have people camped out on it, rubbing away at the ice or something as they dragged you along?
Evie: By the way, I got most of this information about the Zamboni from Zamboni.com, it’s amazing. They literally have a whole section on the history of the Zamboni.
Becs: I am so delighted.
Evie: Even including - they have photos of original vintage ads from the '50s and '60s on there. It's fantastic.
Becs: I can't wait to go check these out. The idea of this beautiful Zamboni historic archive.
Evie: Exactly. I will link these on the transcript. I'm also probably going to put some photos on the transcript as well so if people want to have a look at the different types of Zambonis we will be discussing shortly, you can do that.
Becs: Yes! Everyone, please get up to date on all your Zamboni models. Okay, so he came up with a sled idea which probably wasn't as effective as he wanted?
Evie: Yeah. He did that and, basically, it didn't do its job. It didn't really smooth the surface very well, and it didn't pick up any of the snow that was chipped away by the sled, so he was like “Well this is a bust, let's do this again.” But, in 1947, he had a different idea where he wanted to make a machine that would not only shave the ice, but he wanted something that would remove the shavings, wash the ice and squeegee it and also hold all the snow in a big tank, like large enough to last for an entire resurfacing job. So, he wanted an all-in-one machine.
Becs: He basically snapped and went for max efficiency in the design.
The Model A Zamboni (Photo credit: Zamboni.com)
Evie: He wanted this machine to basically do everything for you. So, in 1949, he created the Model A Zamboni, which is the first-ever actual Zamboni prototype machine. He had a couple errors before making this one with experimental models, he kind of had issues where the blade of the Zamboni would keep rattling around so the snow would get chipped away really unevenly. The snow tank wouldn't carry enough snow, the vehicle couldn't drive easily on the ice before it was only a two-wheel drive, so the front wheels were the only ones that could move on the ice. So, he basically learned from his mistakes, developed the new Model A and he actually - funny story about the fact that all of the Model A, and I believe some of the later versions of the Zambonis were made completely out of surplus parts from World War 2.
Becs: I was thinking of the timing, that's really cool actually.
Evie: Yeah, he used it as a base for most of the early models of the Zambonis. He used leftover Jeeps, the lower parts of Jeeps.
Becs: Oh woah, so he was an efficient king and a recycling king at the same time! Evie: Reduce, reuse, Zamboni.
Becs: We need more people like that.
Evie: He found the Jeep bodies really handy because they were army cars, so they were a four-wheel drive, with four-wheel steering.
Becs: A bit better at driving on the ice, it's not quite as oh, this is a disaster skittering across it. Plus, if you're hiring people to drive on the ice from California, you're really royally screwed. [Hosts laugh]
Evie: And apparently they didn't just use stuff like Jeeps, they used a bunch of other stuff they got from excess supplies from the war. Even like landing gear from a bomber plane was apparently used in the Model A’s? I don't know how it was incorporated, but apparently it was a thing.
Becs: Zambonis were so hardcore back in the day.
Evie: But, yes. The Model A - the blade could be adjustable so you could decide how much ice you wanted to shave, and it could be held really firmly in place so it didn't chatter and jiggle all over the place - very handy. The tank that was built into the upper part of the machine is where all the ice would be deposited, and then it would be melted and fed back into the water tanks where it would be used to wash the ice and apply the last layer of water. It just basically reduced the job from a job that required several people, a hose, some rakes and a tractor to something that could be done by one person. So, this was great. This doesn't mean the Model A was perfect, it certainly was not perfect.
Becs: What? It wasn't perfect on the first edition? Shame on Mr. Zamboni.
Evie: Even though the Model A was equipped with four-wheel steering, he discovered that when the machine was driven pretty close to the boards, and the operator decided to steer away from them, the rear wheels would just steer into the wall while the front wheels would steer away so the machine would be jammed against the wall.
Becs: So you could end up playing a bad kind of bumper-car version of Zamboni driving.
Evie: Exactly!
Becs: Zamboni races are not recommended back in the day is what I'm getting at!
Evie: No! No, I don't think that would be fun! You'd probably end up with a lot of wrecked Zambonis very quickly.
Becs: Right! And some very, very sad boards! [Laughter]
Evie: But he decided if he continued with the 4-wheel drive but made the front steering more of a feature, that problem would be negligible in later models. So that's what he did. But despite the popularity of the Model A Zamboni in the home rink - it only worked in Paramount Ice Land. Eventually, it was taken out of daily use and replaced by a newer model in '53 but they actually decided in 1996 to restore the original model, and it's been restored to its original condition.
Becs: Oh my god!
Evie: To the fact that they actually do test resurfaces of it on the ice to this day. I found a video of the actually using it on the Paramount ice. Great to see that! It's a beast of a machine!
Becs: This is so delightful! We finally found something in Figure Skating that has a really long career! I love it!
Evie: Exactly! Finally! It stuck around, honestly. Obviously the Model A was great, it worked, but there were things that could be improved upon and so Frank Zamboni decided to work it out, make a Model B and also a Model C - this was in the 50s. So the Model B; a total of 4 of them were built, the Pasadena Winter Garden rink purchased the first one, Sonja Henie ordered 2 and took them around the US on her personal tour. One of them even ended up on tour with her in Europe and it was eventually even dismantled there, so they were very well-loved by Sonja Henie.
Becs: This is...Yeah...She was like “I'll adopt a pair of pet Zambonis and take them everywhere, thank you very much!”
Evie: Exactly. And the other, the touring company, the Ice Capades, also purchased a Model B. They were pretty popular. Then the next generation - they were still built completely on a Jeep at this time. It was basically a whole Jeep with a big water tank on top of it. He went through a few more design changes; eventually, the driver's position was elevated and the snow tank was lowered so that the driver could see the ice around him a bit better rather than just being shunted towards the back and not being able to see over the top of the machine. Because if you look at the original Zambonis, they are probably the same length as the ones you see today but they're half as high as they were now, they were very tall.
Becs: Oh my god... Like towers.
Evie: They were hard to look over which proved to be a bit annoying when you're trying to check the ice to see how much you have left to resurface.
Becs: Just a tad!
Evie: And so, the main design changes over the years was to make it a bit more compact and elevate the driver so it would be smaller, a bit more easy to use and the driver would be able to see the rink he was resurfacing.
Becs: Good goals, good product design.
The Model C Zamboni (Photo credit: Zamboni.com)
Evie: Funnily enough, the Model C... Frank actually ended up taking this Zamboni on a little bit of a road trip, because he had to deliver it to a rink in Berkley. So he drove it himself 450 miles up the coast of California!
Becs: Evie, does this mean we should road trip to Worlds in a Zamboni as well? Everyone just road trips in a vintage Zamboni.
Evie: I mean, that's honestly a personal goal. I would love that. We'd have to strap some more chairs to it though because there's only one seat.
Becs: We'll just break a couple of safety laws, it'll be fine.
Evie: I call shotgun!
Becs: Do you even have a license?
Evie: No! [Laughter]
Becs: We'll sort it out! So, handy things about vintage Zambonis: you can road trip with them if you need to!
Evie: Well, he did drive it all the way but he did have a bit of an accident apparently, on the way. During the drive, the key came out of the steering wheel shaft and he lost control over it so the machine veered off into the bushes on the highway median strip and stopped. He managed to get the key back in and proceeded to deliver it but honestly if everyone had phones back in the 50s. Just being able to take a video of this guy driving a Zamboni down the highway and then having a steer off into the middle of the road...
Becs: I'm just imagining this sad Zamboni stranded in the middle of the desert.
Evie: This poor Zamboni has been stuck here for so long.
Vintage ad featuring a Model E Zamboni (Photo credit: Zamboni.com)
Becs: Great image! So can road trip with them, fully equipped for all adventures on and off the ice... I think we need to go back to the vintage design!
Evie: He kept improving on his designs, there was a Model D and Model E. They had small improvements, nothing truly crazy and revolutionary in comparison to the earlier ones he made. Skating was a real booming business in the 50s so he took advantage of that by designing a really efficient model - the Model F. Instead of using an entire Jeep for the foundation of it, he just used the wheels and the bottom half of it so he could accommodate bigger tanks on it, which is a plus when you are resurfacing large surfaces of ice. And, also, he managed to lengthen the side panels by 6 inches which means the amount of water and ice it was able to resurface was enlarged so they'd be able to resurface things much quicker.
Becs: So, at that point, he was pretty much still the only one. It was just his mini fleet and his experimentation for his own rinks? He wasn't mass producing or commercializing them at that point.
Evie: There was a factory in Southern California right next to Iceland. Apparently the factory was pretty busy in the 50s, they got a lot of orders from rinks all over the country to make Zambonis for them. Apparently, on most days, you could see the workers driving down the street near the factory to test them out. Honestly, I would like to see a Flight of the Valkyries but Flight of the Zambonis, just a bunch of them cresting over a hill - [cue the music]
Becs: That's the epic we need to produce!
Evie: Coming this summer “The Flight of the Zambonis.” [music swells] One Zamboni driver against the World!
Becs: Sounds about right.
Evie: I would watch the hell out of that! Becs: “Spinning Out” what? [Laughter]
The Model HD Zamboni (Photo credit: Zamboni.com)
Evie: In the 60s he actually introduced a brand new design of the Zamboni, which is known as the HD series. It was completely new. It included a much bigger snow and water tank, and this became the standard model of which they would build off basically up to now. If you look at the HD series, the original one from '64, it basically looks the same as the one you would see today. It's very similar in shape and design. Yeah, it was very reliable, could resurface a whole surface in 15 minutes or less, depending on the size of it, which was a huge plus!
Becs: That's a massive improvement.
Evie: Everyone, in general, was really, really happy with it. They kept building off this design, other companies started creating their own ice resurfacers and all of their designs ended up mimicking the same shape as the Model HD. All throughout this, they were all fuel-powered like an actual car and so, that was cool but they also wanted to be a little bit more conscious about the fact that, hey, this is creating a lot of emissions.
Becs: In a contained rink, something not quite ideal.
Evie: They're running this big ice-scraping truck around the rink. You know, maybe we can do something better. And so, while they did continue to innovate with petrol and diesel tank Zambonis, in the 90s they released the 550 which was the first battery-operated, completely electric ice resurfacer.
Becs: Wow.
Evie: And since then, all the modern versions of the Zamboni have been completely powered by electricity rather than fuel. This is the standard, zero-emission, most of then run on lithium-ion batteries.
Becs: Oh, that's brilliant. If only we could have more of that in general. I'm just so impressed that Frank Zamboni basically came up with this design and created it, and then pretty much spent the next two decades improving it to the point where he not only created the initial Zamboni but the modern Zamboni, in a sense. You don't always necessarily see the same person involved in that much refinement, usually, someone else ends up perfecting it. The fact that he just saved our asses by perfecting it for two decades. Kudos to him!
Evie: And the whole invention has become so synonymous with his family and himself. We don't call them ice resurfacers, even if it's not a Zamboni brand resurfacer, we call them Zambonis! Because that just what we've all been taught to associate them with, that's what they're called!
Becs: The Kleenex of the ice world!
Evie: Exactly! They're the Kleenex of the ice world!
Becs: Congrats!
Evie: That is all of the amazing information I have about the history of Zambonis. Did you learn something Becs?
Becs: I did! I feel extremely educated! Although, I still want to know who came up with the cute mini-Zambonis because those are my favorites.
Evie: Honestly, they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize!
Becs: I know! Thank you! This was very helpful and now I'm fully equipped to lecture someone on Zamboni history, which could be a great party trick.
Evie: Exactly! You could add it to your Hog Rinks repertoire!
Becs: A sure-fire way to charm people.
Evie: Right, just go on a big rant for 15 minutes about the history of the Zamboni, you'll get friends galore!
Becs: Yes. I'll report back and let you know how that went! That you for looking out for my social life.
Evie: That's alright! Thank you guys for listening, we hope to see you again for our next episode.
Becs: Thanks to the research team for this episode, and to our transcribing and quality control team, and Evie thank you again in advance for editing! You are welcome to moan about my screeches and giggles at all points to me! And thanks to our beloved Gabb for always coming through with some fantastic graphic design for us.
Evie: If you want to get in touch then please feel free to contact us via our website inthelopodcast.com or on Twitter or Instagram. You can find our episodes on Youtube, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and Spotify...Zamboni podcasts dot com! Real podcasts sites that totally exist!
Becs: If you enjoy the show, and want to help support the team, then please consider making a donation to us on our ko-fi page or buying our merch on Redbubble, and we’d like to give a huge thank you to all the listeners who have contributed or given feedback or just listen, we appreciate you so much, thank you!
Evie: Yes! You can find the links to all our social media pages and our ko-fi and Redbubble on the website.
Becs: And be sure to visit the notes for some super sweet Zambonis.
Evie: Yes! Check out the transcript for some Zamboni references, some photos, I'll put a bunch of stuff on there for you guys to look over if you are interested in looking at photos of old Zambonis from the 50s and 60s!
Becs: Who wouldn't be? That's an irresistible proposition, let's be honest!
Evie: If you’re listening on iTunes, please consider leaving a rating and a review if you enjoyed the show and enjoyed listening to us rant about Zambonis for half an hour!
Becs: Yay!
Evie: That's for listening this has been Evie,
Becs: And Becs.
Together: Bye!