Saturday, October 27, 2007

No. 0036 - Popsicle Rink

I went to a hockey game last month, it was pretty fun I must say. However, I really don't know much about hockey, in fact, I don't even know how to skate (I have this fear of falling and then have other skaters skate over my fingers and cut them off, I wonder if severing fingers has ever been a problem at most skating rinks). During the 3 periods of the game, I didn't really have a clue as to what was going on with the calls that the refs were making. But there is one thing I can relate; the fist fight. I don't what is so entertaining about seeing grown men beating the crap out of each other over a little circular disk. Considering how easy it was for them to just start fighting at the drop of a hat, I couldn't imagine how tempting it must have been for the players to keep from swinging their hockey stick in the heat of battle. I would so break out in a frenzy with my hockey stick if some other hockey player has be by my neck, driving his fist into my face. The great thing about this is the ref would actually let them fight a bit and then break them up, send them to their little "jail" box and then game goes on.

Besides the fights, another great thing about hockey is the speed. As the players would carve left and right careening down the rink, and then coming down to a dead stop, I couldn't help but to notice this fine mist of shaved ice that gets kicked up in the air. Then it hit me, what if the rink was flavored? Instant shave ice! All you need to do is to open your mouth and the ice would land on your tongue. How great is that? I've always wondered how a hockey rink is put together in the middle of a basketball stadium. In fact, the very stadium that we were watching the hockey is also the stadium for the Phoenix Suns. How do they do it? How is the ice maintained frozen? Well I can care less about that, but the tear down. . . how would they get rid of all that ice. Now if that was a flavored rink, then you can just open the place up, charge each kids 10 bucks and skate(or shave) away. Some of my friends raised some concern of sanitation of the Popsicle rink. Think about it, all that is touching the ice are the blades which has a small surface area. And how often do people take their skates and walk around town with them? People are usually all padded up to go skating anyway so you wouldn't have to worry about dirty hands or body parts touching the ice. So I figure this, it you are going to melt the ice and get some pump to suck out all the water from the rink when the basketball seasons begins anyway, why not make it flavored and let the people have at it and make a little side profit.

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I learned about ice skating rinks in my plastics class, of all places. Most rinks these days are made with synthetic ice. This way they don't have to keep the temperature so low, so it uses less energy to run the rink. I won't go into detail here, but you can look it up. Synthetic shaved ice anyone?

Elizabeth said...

You can check the process of making synthetic ice here http://www.vikingice.com/

Anonymous said...

i'm so glad that I have met you and can picture you describing the details of the popsicle rink. and, since I can now call you my friend too and not just my friends friend, i feel cool enough to visit your blog instead of just hearing about it.