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Bikini Weather Hockey
by Alanah McGinley on 08/05/08 at 11:49 AM ET
Comments (8)
110 degrees outside? Why not play hockey?
Pacific Ice is a California company located in San Jose, specializing in the production of outdoor synthetic ice hockey rinks. With our leading edge technology, we have designed and built the largest outdoor synthetic ice hockey rink in the world with NHL style (dasher) boards. We have made it possible to play ice hockey or ice skate all year round on large outdoor synthetic ice rinks, regardless of the temperature or location. You can now play ice hockey in coastal areas, the sunbelt, the mountains, the desert, the plains/prairies, the tropics, just about anywhere.
Click here or on the image to enlarge—it’s not every day you find palm trees growing up against the boards. And check out the Pacific Ice website to see video of kids skating on this stuff.
Filed in: Hockey Related Stories, Hockey Equipment | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: pacific+ice, synthetic+ice,
Comments
Let’s not forget that the NHL has already held an outdoor game in Las Vegas, back during the Kings’ Gretzky era: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DD133AF93AA1575AC0A967958260
Posted by Josh from Montreal on 08/05/08 at 12:32 PM ET
Right but refrigeration technology has come a long way since 1991. Plus that game was played when the summer temperatures in Las Vegas were dropping and not in the middle of June and July when temperatures are over 103 degrees F on a regular basis.
Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 08/05/08 at 12:48 PM ET
Okay, great. I wasn’t making any kind of argument - just sayin’ that this has been more or less possible for a good, long while now.
Posted by Josh on 08/05/08 at 12:51 PM ET
I’ve seen this stuff in person. They set one up at a local outdoor mall here in SoCal and some little girls performed a small skating show. It looked like you couldn’t stop the normal way Hockey players would by turning their skates sideways…
Posted by Itlan on 08/05/08 at 01:48 PM ET
Yeah, you can’t really do a hockey stop on the synthetic ice, and it feels a lot different than skating on ice, but it’s better than nothing. It seemed to get scratched/scuffed up relatively easily as well, and like they said, there is no resurfacing equipment… It could never replace ice for any serious level of hockey.
Posted by NHLJeff from Pens fan in Chicago, IL on 08/05/08 at 03:09 PM ET
This is the stuff EA (and 2k, maybe) use for the NHL / NHL2k motion capture. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to skate on, and figured pretyt much what has been said: is ‘traditional’ stopping possibe, how quickly does it just get torn to shreds (fast, I bet), etc…
Still, seems like the skating itself, while the material is new, is pretty smooth. I’d prefer an extra expensive ultra-elaborate cooling system though haha
Posted by underthechestnuttree from LaSalle, Ontario, Canada on 08/05/08 at 06:16 PM ET
You know what? I’ll check out NY-NY Hotel/Casino sometime this winter to see if they have this same ice for the replica of the ice skating rink at the Rockefeller Center in NYC.
Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 08/06/08 at 12:49 AM ET
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Probably a test vehicle for the cooling/icing system for arenas with humidity/overheating problems like Dallas and Phoenix.
Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 08/05/08 at 11:51 AM ET