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"Zamboni driver, I want to have your love child!"

By Walter G. Meyer

May 15, 2006

San Diego--Since I was about seven years old and saw my first Zamboni at a Pittsburgh Penguins game, I have wanted to ride one. Thanks to the San Diego Gulls and their long-time Zamboni driver, Ralph Bedoe, I finally got my wish. I also took the opportunity to talk to Ralph about his job, the Zamboni, and the public’s fascination with it.

They also have an antique 1966 model with an industrial strength Wisconsin motor. “Old faithful,” as Bedoe calls that ancient model, has the old chain drive and paddles that deliver little snow cones up and over and dump them in the hopper. These old-school machines were even more fun to watch with their seemingly endless supply of snowballs.

Bedoe has been working at the arena for 22 years and is currently chief engineer. Even before the Gulls returned to San Diego, he cleared the ice for other events like Disney on Ice. He sees his job as two-fold: entertainment and cutting the ice. He has a few different looks he sports for his drive around the ice—he chauffeured me around while wearing an afro wig. He waves to the crowd and mixes up his route to the amusement of season ticket holders who know what pattern he should be following. Usually a child is selected to ride shotgun on the Zamboni and he also feels it’s his duty to make sure his passenger is having a good time.

He noted the fascination many people have for his vehicle. Zamboni groupies have waited for him at the end of his run, and people have put signs up about the Zamboni driver, like "Zamboni driver, I want to have your love child."

“That only happened once,” he said. “Typically, after an event and I’m cleaning the ice and people are leaving the Arena Club girls come out of the club and get out to the entrance of the ice and they see me out there, they want to get on the Zamboni and ride it around.” He has been married since he’s been doing this job so he has never availed himself of the offers he gets.

Bedoe says it takes concentration to make sure he doesn’t miss a spot or that he doesn’t lay down too much water. On one occasion he was so distracted that he made a rare miscue. The distraction: He got flashed. “Every time I would pass by this girl she acted like she was going to pull her top up. About the third time I went down, she did pull her top up and of course, I screwed up ‘cause I lost my concentration. I left a spot that I had to go back and get.”

He has also had one of his passengers flash the crowd: “I had a rider who worked at Pure Platinum and she flashed the audience. She got kicked out ‘cause it’s a family thing and they don’t want that to happen. I was paying attention to the turns so I wasn’t able to observe. I only heard about it after it happened.”

Cheap thrills aside, there is serious work to be done as the mistake at the Senators game proved.

Bedoe has had his problems with the old machines. “The worst case scenario that happened to me is I went out on the ice and was making my turn and I noticed somebody in the stands pointing and I wasn’t sure what was going on. But he kept pointing and pointing and he kept pointing, so finally I’m thinking, something’s got to be wrong. So I pulled off the ice and the wheel fell off. The axel broke and the wheel was coming out and I couldn’t see it. As soon as I got off, BAM! If that had happened out there, it would have been a nightmare—to lift the Zamboni and then try to get it off ice.”

Bedoe estimates he has done over 2000 “cuts” as the cleaning of the ice is called. That is really what the machine does: slices off a layer of ice and then lays down a fresh layer of water which should, if applied properly, freeze almost instantly.

Getting the perfect cut, however, isn’t as easy as it often looks. The tray that’s dragged behind the Zamboni is called a conditioner, and inside the conditioner there’s a 72-inch blade that cuts the ice. “When I go out there between periods to cut the ice, I have to back the blade off because if I were to get all of ice from their skates, plus shave the ice, it would fill the Zamboni up and I’d have to come back. It’s kind of tricky and the first couple times you have to really pay attention to how much snow you’re picking up.

“If you see people standing up and looking its because they want to get an idea of how much is going into the bin,” he explains. “They have a little window but when you’re driving it’s easy to lose your concentration if you’re trying to see how much ice you’re picking up.”

The ice is only 3/4ths of an inch to an inch thick, which doesn’t leave much room for error. If the ice is too thin, a skate could cut through to the concrete underneath. If too thick, the ice on top is too far from the cooling coils and could get soft. The ice surface is kept 16-18 degrees Fahrenheit for hockey, but 24-25 degrees for figure skating. The figure skaters like it softer so they can plant to do their jumps and turns.

Hockey players, however, want it harder so the puck will skim over the surface faster and they can move faster. Another reason is that with so many guys on the ice at once, softer ice would quickly get chewed up.

After the cut ice is removed, the back part of the conditioner has a large towel called a “spreader” that lays down the water coat. This part is even trickier than the cutting, Bedoe says. “If we don’t regulate the water in the corners, it’ll build up quite a bit and the referees will come out and complain.” He’d then have to send his guys out with squeegees to spread the excess water.

“I’ll shut the water off in the corners and then turn it back on on the straight-aways. If it’s a real humid day, or there’s a lot of people in here, then you could have issues with the water not freezing quick enough. When that happens you can do two things: go back there and crank temperature down, or lay less water and just let those guys live with it. ‘Ponding’ is a result of somebody not driving the Zamboni around very well.”

The great twentieth century America philosopher Charlie Brown once observed, “There are three things in life that people like to stare at: A rippling stream, a crackling fire and a Zamboni clearing the ice.”

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Walter G. Meyer is a freelancer in San Diego. You can visit his web site at: waltergmeyer.com