Stupid question

[Fire0nIce228 1]

This is dumb but I'm wondering how people spray ice so high. I was lookin at this weeks best pictures gallery on NHL.com today and theres a few photos of guys spraying ice above their waist. How the heck do they (or you) do that? Is it the quality of the ice? The hollow? How fast or how much downforce they generate when stopping? I use a 3/8 cut on our home rink ice and I'd say I'm moderatly quick, and I dont even get spray on the boards up to my knees.. Kinda stupid, but it bugs me that those guys barely look like their trying or going fast on TV, and they stop at the bench and ice shoots forever and a half away. :(

[Quintin 16]

How far you bend your knees and force you put into the stop.

[donkey87 0]

Part of it is the speed nad weight that the NHLers have. If your a heavy guy going really fast then suddenly stop you're going to spray a lot of ice.

[ktang 34]

The quality of the ice and its ability to "snow" is also affected by the additives put into the water.

[asdfa 0]

are there really additives put into water? i always thought a lot of snow meant that the ice was soft, less integrity in the ice crystals and when you stopped, they all broke apart.

[gotdangles16 0]

dang..i just bend my knees and try to stop as quick as possible without sliding, and i can spray above my head half the time

[Chadd 916]

Speed and downforce are the two factors. Dig in harder and the ice will go higher.

[analog999 0]

I was wondering the same thing in the last month or so. The only way I can get ice to go that high is to sprint down the length of the rink and stop right up against the boards. Then again, maybe it's happening when I play and I just don't notice it because I'm more concerned with the game.

[ktang 34]

are there really additives put into water? i always thought a lot of snow meant that the ice was soft, less integrity in the ice crystals and when you stopped, they all broke apart.

Torino Games call on world-class Canadian iceman

You are correct in that pure ice is a crystal. Having air or certain impurities in the water as it freezes softens the ice by leaving gaps in the crystal lattice; having fewer impurities in the ice makes it more pure and lets it snow better. If the lattice is not consistent, it would break into larger chunks along the weaker portions of the latice as the players stop, and these larger chunks would not float upwards as much.

Some chemical additives are supposed to reduce the surface tension in the water so that the impurities / air can be floated up and scraped off at the next zamboni shaving. In the article above, you can see that there is still considerable debate about whether this works or not; the Cdn ice expert above just uses pure filtered water.

Also, water can be formed into 8 or 9 different lattice structures. If you want smooth and fast ice, you want the structure that is in a flat sheet, so that is one of the reasons they build up the ice in thin layers. These sheets have weaker bonds between layers, so when a player stops hard it rips into more layers and makes more snow (a wafer that breaks loose disintegrates easier, like a Pringles chip).

All of the above is quite theoretical and subject to being proven wrong!

Back to the subject of spraying ice; I'm a lighter guy, and I can spray pretty high if I stop on the rounder parts of the blades (towards the heels or toes). I didn't think I sprayed that high, but I was videotaped stopping once and the spray cloud was head high.

[Hidious 0]

Spraying ice is certainly the last thing i'd worry about especially when i'm playing the game of hockey.

[Overtime 0]

Looks cool thats all B)