This Summer's vacation was a few days at the US Olypmic Festival
in "cool" San Antonio.  Actually it was only "cool" in The AlamoDome,
sixty-five degrees inside and a heat index of +105 outside!
As is the norm with my posts, you won't find much technical commentary
here.  I would be quickly out of my league, if I tried to provide
technical commentary, but I will comment about an uncomfirmed rumor!
 
Place:      The AlamoDome, Women's Ice Hockey, USA vs Canada
Time:       Intermission, Period 1
 
The dialogue went something like this:
 
SSBM (Spectator Sitting Behind Me):
       Great first period.  The US are playing a good game.
HLCS (Hockey-L correspodent spectator):
       It was a fast first period.
 
SSBM:  This is the first of the hockey games that I've been to
       in the dome, but I was here for the figure and speed
       skating.
HLCS:  I didn't get to fly in until Tuesday, so I missed all of
       the figure and speed skating.
 
SSBM:  The figure skating was good.  The house was packed for most
       of the events.  Speed skating was OK.  The interesting part
       was the Zamboni incident.
HLCS:  Zamboni incident ... what do you mean by that?
 
SSBM:  Well, you have to remember that there aren't many people
       in San Antonio who know how to drive a Zamboni.  Apparently,
       the city recruited someone to be "Mr. Zamboni."  He was doing
       a good job. With two ice surfaces, he was kept pretty busy.
       When one skating surface was in use for competition, the
       other was active with warmups.
HLCS:  I can imagine that it would create a hectic pace and the
       ice surface is critical for the figure and speed skaters.
       (equally important for ice hockey too ;-)
 
SSBM:  The pace got to be too much. The Zamoboni driver wasn't
       comfortable with all of the crowd watching.  He resigned
       during one of the speed/figure skating events.  They had to
       get a substitute real fast.
       And it "ain't" easy to find a Zamboni driver in Texas!
 
The above is my recollection of the comments from SSBM.
Of course, I've embellished them a little, but the general
content is a fair and accurate synopsis.  SSBM told me that the
Zamboni driver resigned in the middle of an event.
 
Now, here's where we can call on one of Hockey-L's very own, of
course, Mike "Hockey-L" Machnik for further investigative
reporting!
Sources indicate that Jay Valde (Woburn, MA and Northeastern (?)),
who served as one of the Equipment Managers, was conscripted to
serve as the Master of the Zamboni.  Perhaps with Mike's help we will
find out if this is "cinema verite" or just another "urban legend."
 
As an aside to Carol, Erik, Pam, and Paula, somehow I can't but help
think that the "Zamboni" song would have been right at home on the PA
system at The AlamoDome.  Perhaps if the lyrics to "I just to want drive
the Zamboni" had been reverberating through the dome, the purported
contretemps could have been averted ;-)
 
Now, for a few pseudo-technical comments:
The AlamoDome is a great facility, but select your seats carefully.  In
some instances, one could have seats too close to the ice.  The seat
pitch seemed to be inadequate, especially some of the seats on the "50
yard" line (and I do mean "on" the 50 yeard line.)
As reported, the facility contains two skating surfaces.  A large
curtain (at the 50 yard line) divides the facility.  A skating
surface is contained within each resulting half.  Movable seating is
aligned along the 50 yard line and the other primary seating is in what
would be "end zone" seats (crude ASCII graphic below).
 
                  G-1-2-3-4-|-4-3-2-1-G
                  ----------|----------
                  ---  I  --|--  I  ---
                  ---     --|--     ---
                  ---  C  --|--  I  ---
                  ---     --|--     ---
                  ---  E  --|--  E  ---
                  ----------|----------
 
The crowds were fairly large.  A new record of 10,425 was set for
attendance (gold medal game).  The PA announcer did a good job of
briefing the crowd on what to look for and providing a terminology
overview.  A sizable portion of the crowd had never been to a hockey
game, but you could see a fair number of NHL jerseys in the crowd.
 
Enough commentary and speculation for this post.  I'll go back into
hibernation once again ... that is unless we adjust Hockey-L's
scope to include Field Hockey ... ;-)
 
James Bradshaw
Clemson University
 
P.S. And the above "Zamboni incident" account really did happen!
     Can it be authenticated? Was SSBM providing accurate details ...
     or was this like on of those Elvis sightings ...