>                                                                 Anyone else
>have any Zamboni accident stories?
>
>Andrew Coll       [log in to unmask]
>                  [log in to unmask]
 
In response to Andrew's request for Zamboni accident stories, I would
like to offer the following slightly-edited version of an article I
wrote that first appeared in the Ithaca Times on February 2, 1984. In
the intervening 6 1/2 seasons, I still haven't come across anything to
compare with the mess described in this article.
********************
 
     I have seen a lot of strange and wondrous things in my hockey
travels these last seventeen or so years. I have seen a game in which
the referee and linesmen wore gloves because the temperature in the rink
was 26 below zero, cold enough to freeze two cases of beer in the
dressing room. I have seen a substitute referee come out of the stands
to replace an  injured colleague and work the game wearing red sweat
pants and rental skates. I have broken up a dressing room shoving match
between Laing Kennedy, then coach of the Ithaca Stars, and the fat,
swinish general manager of a collection of goons and thugs called the
Copper City Chiefs. I have seen Sue Dolan's fuzzy purple slippers. But I
have never seen anything quite so bizarre as last Saturday's game in
Providence's Meehan Auditorium between Cornell and the host Brown
Bruins.
     This game may have set collegiate hockey back fifteen years. It
featured: a broken Zamboni machine; a tow truck;
a second Zamboni, a wheezing old relic with no brakes that
had to be taken off for repairs twice; a janitor pressd into service as
driver of said Zamboni; a linesman blockading the Cornell bench; two
trash barrels full of water; and the usual inept officiating that has
unfortunately become the norm in ECAC hockey. It started almost an hour
late, and ended after midnight the only way, really, that it could have,
with a flukey goal that, as it floated into the Cornell net, may have
drawn the curtain on the Red's Ivy League title hopes.
     When the team arrived at the rink, strange things were obviously
about to happen. Brown's Zamboni, the machine that cleans and resurfaces
the ice, was parked, very dead, directly in front of the Cornell bench.
Not to worry, said the Brown rink management. We will simply tow it off,
then use the backup Zamboni for the game, which will be delayed just a
few minutes.
     Shortly a tow truck appeared, backed onto the ice, and took the
stricken vehicle away. Enter the backup Zamboni, a gasping, clunking
wreck that had been original equipment when Meehan Auditorium was
dedicated in 1962, but which had not been used in about ten years.
The machine was being driven by a janitor, the backup Zamboni driver, as
(so the story was related to me) the regular driver works Saturday
nights at a restaurant that he owns and is not available for driving
those nights. One trip around the ice convinced any remaining doubters
that this would indeed be a long night. The machine was neither picking
up the old ice nor putting down a new surface. Not to worry, said the
Brown rink management. We will simply replace the hoses, and the game
will be delayed just a few minutes.
     Eventually, hoses patched, the janitor and the backup Zamboni
reappeared, and wheezed and clunked and skidded around the rink, laying
down a good enough ice surface for the pre-game warmup to begin.
Miraculously, nothing went wrong between the warmup and the start of the
first period, and finally, 55 minutes late, we were ready for hockey.
     Cornell sandwiched goals by Terry Gage and Geoff Dervin around a
score by Brown's Ed Pizzo to take a 2-1 lead into the final minute of
the period. Then, with the Red killing off the last of three straight
penalties called against them by referee Richard Burrell, Brown's Tim
O'Connor put a rebound behind goalie Jim Edmands. Cornell argued that
Brown had a man in the crease, but Burrell denied it. Burrell was
wrong--a videotape replay clearly showed Bob Jones skating into the
crease before the puck, unchecked by a defender.
     At the end of the period, a linesman blocked Cornell's players from
leaving their bench until Brown's team had departed. The benches at
Meehan are side by side, and the players enter and leave through a
common walkway. Coach Lou Reycroft took exception to the linesman's
unannounced action and shoved him, earning a bench penalty. Then it was
time for Brown's band to delay things further with a ten-minute skating
"show", indefensible in light of the long delay in starting the game.
Finally, the janitor and the backup Zamboni appeared, wheezed and
chugged and skidded their way around the rink, and we were ready for
period two.
     The second period was a dull, scoreless, sloppily-played affair
that might just be the worst period of hockey I have ever seen. It was a
perfect lead-in to the events that followed.
     The janitor and the backup Zamboni reappeared, slammed into the end
boards, and clunked and gasped their way around the rink for what we
thought would be the last time. Then the blade on the Zamboni broke and
gouged a hole in the ice that stretched from the penalty box halfway to
the Cornell goal. The Cornell players complained to  Burrell that the
trench made the ice unsafe. Burrell, in a rare lucid moment, agreed.
First he and the linesmen, asissted by some of the players, tried to fill in
the hole by scraping ice into it with their skates. That didn't
work. Not to worry, said the Brown rink management. We will simply fill
it in with the machine we use to keep the ice from building up along the
boards. That didn't work. Not to worry, said the Brown rink management.
We will simply fill it in with ice scraped up by the Zamboni. The
ancient beast hadn't scraped up enough ice all night to chill a
six-pack, so this effort was doomed as well. Finally, a new plan of
attack was proposed. We will empty two trash cans full of water on the
ice, said the Brown rink management. Then, while the officials skate
around aimlessly in the puddle and the players sit around in the
dressing rooms in their underwear, we will change the blade on the
Zamboni. Then we will have the janitor drive the Zamboni around and
around until the ice is something vaguely resembling flat. This finally
worked, although by the time the major surgery was complete, the ice
scraped, the teams warmed up and the game ready to resume, the
twelve-minute intermission had stretched to over an hour.
     Brown went ahead early in the period on a shorthanded goal.
Cornell's Pete Marcov tied the score at 14:23, but it took Brown just 16
seconds to go on top again. We speculated in the press box what else
could happen to lengthen the game. The referee could get hit with the
puck. Or the lights could go out. Or a piece of the glass above the
boards could break. Or we could go into overtime. We were right about
the overtime. With just 1:39 left, Cornell's Duanne Moeser made an
outstanding play to tie the score at 4-4 and force the extra session.
     No way a game like this could end on a routine goal. At 12:16
(that's 16 minutes past midnight, not twelve minutes and 16 seconds into
the ten-minute overtime) Brown's Jones won a faceoff to the left of the
Cornell net. Bruin defenseman Brian Driscoll took a long shot. Goalie
Edmands came out to make the save. The puck hit Cornell's Randy
MacFarlane in the knee and deflected high in the air, and it was all
too clear what was going to happen--the lazily floating puck and goalie
Edmands were going to race each other to the far goalpost, and the puck
was going to win. It did, and this bizarre hockey game was finally over,
and Cornell had its second 5-4 loss in as many nights. The two defeats
stretched the current losing streak to five, and dropped Cornell's ECAC
record to 5-8. With just eight games remaining, Cornell needs a complete
reversal of form, and soon, to get back into the playoff picture.