`Hey, I Want To Drive The Zamboni' -- Hall Of Famer Spins Off Trading Card, Catalog And Fan Club
The NHL playoffs are rolling along, and it's time to recognize one of the great names in the sport. It is one of the few names in hockey as well-known as Howe and Gretzky.
This Hall of Famer is so popular that in addition to a trading card, there's a merchandise catalog, a song, World Wide Web sites, beer endorsements and a fan club.
Not even the great Gordie himself can say he toured with Sonja Henie and appeared in People magazine, the Peanuts comic strip and on David Letterman's show and "Cheers."
We're talking big-time.
We're talking a distinguished career that spans five decades.
We're talking Zamboni.
Charlie Brown once told his Peanuts pals, "There are three things in life that are fun to watch: A rippling stream, a fire in a fireplace and a Zamboni going around."
Zamboni.
What a wonderful word.
Sounds like a fruity Italian dessert. Or a pasta noodle. Or a magician. How did a square, clumsy ice resurfacer end up with such a playful name? Why did Henie travel with her own Zamboni? Did someone really drive a Zamboni from California to Illinois? Where can you buy a Zamboni belt buckle?
All of these questions, and more, are about to be answered.
How it started
Frank J. Zamboni, a Utah native and ninth-grade dropout, moved to southern California in 1922 and opened a plant to manufacture ice for local households.
In 1939, the advent of home refrigerators put him out of work, so he shifted gears. Zamboni built an ice-skating rink - Iceland - figuring he would get some use from his refrigeration equipment.
Not having any experience running a rink, Zamboni didn't realize it took a crew of five people an hour and a half to resurface the ice.
He figured there had to be a better way. Zamboni, a mechanical junkie, began tinkering with an Army-surplus Jeep and some spare parts he had. Finally, in the summer of 1949, he got the contraption to work. In 1994, the company sold its 5,000th ice resurfacer to a rink in Japan. Zamboni died July 28, 1988, at the age of 87.
Zamboni was a modest man. If it weren't for a special saleswoman named Sonja, Zamboni's invention might never have made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
There wasn't a luxury in the world that skating glamour queen Sonja Henie couldn't afford. The three-time Olympic champion from Norway reportedly made $47 million from ice shows and movies from 1930 to 1960, and she was never shy about her wealth.
Henie and the cast of her ice review were practicing at Zamboni's rink in 1950 when she noticed the mechanical ice resurfacer and decided she had to have one.
Henie paid Zamboni between $5,000 and $10,000 to build machine No. 3. He loaded up the parts in a U-Haul trailer, attached it to a Jeep chassis and headed to St. Louis, where he was to meet Henie. By the time Zamboni got there, the troupe had gone on to Chicago, so he drove a little farther and eventually assembled Henie's Zamboni at Chicago Stadium.
She took the machine all over the United States and Canada, usually by train. Every rink manager who saw it wanted one. Ice Capades bought No. 4, and in 1954 Zamboni sold 10 resurfacers to arenas in Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Dallas and New Jersey - all places Henie had been.
"She's really the one who got the word out there about my dad's invention," said Richard Zamboni, Frank's son and the president of the company. "She'd stop in some city, and a few days later we'd get a call from the arena saying they wanted a machine like Sonja Henie's." Aw, Peanuts!
There are other stories about the Zamboni.
It came to Charles Schultz in an Italian restaurant, a month before the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics. Schultz wanted to order spumoni for dessert, and the word "Zamboni" popped into his brain.
On Jan. 27, 1980, the Zamboni made its Peanuts comic strip debut, and it has been a regular ever since. The first strip featured Snoopy and Lucy skating on a frozen pond. Snoopy says, "I should be in an ice show. If I were in an ice show, I could be Richard Dwyer, or Mr. Frick!" Then he falls (bonk!), and Lucy replies, "Or drive the Zamboni."
Schultz is no stranger to the ice resurfacer. He built a rink in Santa Rosa, Calif., in 1968 and equipped it with a Zamboni. He bought a second one a few years ago.
Here are a few classic Zamboni Peanuts strips:
"In case you're interested, there's a Zamboni headed your way," Charlie Brown said from his pitcher's mound to Lucy in the outfield.
"If the trees are bare. If the skies are gray. If the Zamboni is running, can winter be far behind?" Snoopy.
"I've got to meet the man who drives the zucchini," Marcie to Peppermint Patty.
Patty corrects her, "Zamboni."
Drive and ambition
So you think it's easy driving a Zamboni? You think you just hop on that little seat, lumber around and wave at the crowd?
Think again.
"I was nervous as hell the first time," said Al Sobotka, stadium manager at Detroit's Joe Louis Arena, who has been a Zamboni driver for more than 20 years. "The whole crowd is watching you, and you can't hit the boards or miss one little patch of ice. Some places need more water than others. It's tough. But you learn to overcome the fear."
Once he got past the jitters, Sobotka set off on the mission that possesses all Zamboni drivers: Break six minutes.
Rick Church, the scoreboard operator, used to clock Sobotka during intermissions.
"If you do each circle in 45 to 50 seconds, you're doing good time," Sobotka explained. "I used to shoot for 40 to 45 seconds. Eight years ago, during a Little Caesars youth playoff game, I went just under six minutes. It's my best time ever."
Asked if it would be possible to resurface the rink in five minutes, Sobotka shook his head and replied: "If there is, I'd like to meet the person who does it."
It's a gift
Father's Day is right around the corner, and do we have the perfect gift idea: For just $9.50, your dad can be the first guy on the block with a Zamboni brass belt buckle (unless, of course, he lives on Sobotka's block).
Or, if you prefer, get him a Zamboni key chain, wool cap, T-shirt, sweatshirt, button ("What the hell's a Zamboni?"), lapel pin, mug, wool cap, model or auto license frame ("My Other Car is a Zamboni").
Place orders with Charles R. Mueller & Sons in Eastpointe, Mich., at 1-800-822-6670, or directly with the Zamboni company at 1-310-633-0751. Mueller & Sons is one of a handful of Zamboni distributors and repair shops nationwide. The company is refurbishing a 1962 model for a Pittsburgh rink.
It does show speed
A horse named Zamboni, offspring of Icecapades and Sweeping Beauty, was a regular winner on New York tracks in the early 1980s.
Don't trade it
Mickey Mantle for Zamboni? Don't laugh. The resurfacer has a trading card. Upper Deck issued card No. 549 in its 1990-91 NHL series to commemorate Frank Zamboni. The card is about as exciting-looking as you would expect. On one side, a Zamboni. On the other side, a portrait of Mr. Zamboni with a brief history of the machine.
Moments in Zamboni history
-- The Zamboni made its Olympic debut during the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley, Calif. Six machines were used, and it wasn't long before the company received orders from Japan, Europe and Australia.
-- In the early 1980s students at Michigan Tech formed a Zamboni Fan Club and observed Zamboni Day.
-- On March 29, 1986, a Zamboni drove the streets of Providence, R.I., with a police escort.
Michigan State was playing Harvard for the NCAA championship and leading, 1-0, when the Zamboni broke during the first intermission. A backup Zamboni was at nearby Providence College. It arrived 20 minutes later, with a police escort.
The MSU band played "I Get Around" as the backup "Z" did its chores. The poor Zamboni driver was booed. He missed a spot. The Spartans won the game, 6-5.
-- In February 1994, during the Winter Olympics, "Four Man Zamboni" was No. 8 on Letterman's Top 10 List of Rejected Olympic Sports. (No. 1, for the record, was Freestyle Gillooly.)
-- In one of television's most bizarre ways of killing off a character, Eddie Lebec, barmaid Carla's husband on "Cheers," was run over by a Zamboni.
And, on down the highway
It's the '90s, and being the hippest of the machines in the tractor family, the Zamboni is chugging along at 15 mph in the right lane of the information superhighway. Do a World Wide Web search on Zamboni, and you're likely to find it in 664 spots.
Here are a few:
Zamboni page (http://www.icegators.com/-lg-faq/zamboni.html)
Zamboni (http://www.uwosh.edu/home pages/faculty staff/perrie/zamboni.html)
Zamboni novelties (http://www.wwnet.com/-muellers/nove.html) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Just the facts
Birthdate: Summer of '49.
Birthplace: Paramount, Calif.
Father: Frank J. Zamboni.
Weight: 6,300 pounds.
Engine: Jeep at birth, now Volkswagen.
Blade: 77 inches.
Top speed: 15 mph.
Price: $50,000 to $65,000.
Number manufactured since 1950: 5,500.
Where they are: 60 countries.
Oldest working Zamboni: No. 4 (1951), originally purchased by the Ice Capades, is on display at the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minn. It was rescued from a fire in Los Alamos, N.M., in the 1970s. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Remembered in song
The Gear Daddies were so intrigued by the Zamboni that they wrote a song about it.
You can find it on their CD "Billy's Live Bait" and on the "D2: Mighty Ducks" sound track.
The song:
Well, I went down to the local arena,
Asked to see the manager man,
He came from his office and said,
"Son, can I help you?"
I looked at him and said, "Yes, you can."
Hey, I want to drive the Zamboni,
I want to drive the Zamboni, yes I do.
Now ever since I was young it's been my dream,
That I might drive the Zamboni machine,
I'd get that ice just as slick as can be,
And all the kids would look up to me.
Now the manager said, "Son, I know it looks keen,"
But that right there's an expensive machine,
And I've got Smokey who's been driving for years,
About that time, I broke into tears.