Ice pucks on an inline surface?

[ryanhellyer 0]

Hi,

Hopefully noone minds me asking a question on my first post!

I wasn't sure where to ask this and I've scoured the internet looking for an answer, but to no avail. There are a number of other posts about inline surfaces here so figured this was a good place to ask ...

I'm looking at the possibility of constructing a shooting gallery/small training rink within an ice hockey facility. We were looking at using a synthetic ice surface but there seems to be a some serious problems with these so we're now considering installing an inline hockey surface instead. However, since this is for an ice hockey facility we would want to use ice hockey pucks to better simulate being on the ice.

So ... do any of you have experience using ice hockey pucks on an inline hockey surface? I've heard that Ice Court surfaces tend to be slipperier than Sport Courts so was thinking that could be an option but I wasn't sure. Or if anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear from you.

We have a topic about this on our club website http://www.dunedinicehockey.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=99

Thanks,

Ryan

PS: As far as I know, the closest Sport, Ice or Spider Court is a 15 hour plane ride from where I am now, so there's no opportunity for us to try them out.

[sniper_23 0]

Hi,

Hopefully noone minds me asking a question on my first post!

I wasn't sure where to ask this and I've scoured the internet looking for an answer, but to no avail. There are a number of other posts about inline surfaces here so figured this was a good place to ask ...

I'm looking at the possibility of constructing a shooting gallery/small training rink within an ice hockey facility. We were looking at using a synthetic ice surface but there seems to be a some serious problems with these so we're now considering installing an inline hockey surface instead. However, since this is for an ice hockey facility we would want to use ice hockey pucks to better simulate being on the ice.

So ... do any of you have experience using ice hockey pucks on an inline hockey surface? I've heard that Ice Court surfaces tend to be slipperier than Sport Courts so was thinking that could be an option but I wasn't sure. Or if anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear from you.

We have a topic about this on our club website http://www.dunedinicehockey.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=99

Thanks,

Ryan

PS: As far as I know, the closest Sport, Ice or Spider Court is a 15 hour plane ride from where I am now, so there's no opportunity for us to try them out.

We played in a NARCH tourney once and our captain forgot the bag of pucks so we used ice pucks on sport court for warm up. It didn't work very well at all. The puck gets kind of stuck and goes on edge pretty easily when trying to make passes and move the puck around.

But if you're just using it as a surface for shooting it'll work fine. We didn't have any problems shooting ice pucks off the sport court.

[gman 0]

Maybe this will help, probably not... My son has a bucket of 100 ice pucks that he shoots in the garage. You can shoot all day long with them even off of concrete, but stickhandling or passing is pretty much impossible. It seems like some guys around here have talked about spraying stuff on a surface to make it slick or putting stuff on the puck. I tried car wax, Miguerras polish, some of that "wet look" tire cleaner and a few other things. Nothing really worked to make an ice puck slide.

[DavisP 0]

I've heard that puting wax paper on the ice pucks helps them slide but I've never tried it myself.

[piperclap 0]

Just make some shooting boards out of the plastic used on the dasher boards.

Heck, even something like the cheap countertop laminate stuff works well.

[rwclifto 0]

I saw some pucks designed for ice hockey players to practice on an inline surface. It is a regulation ice puck with small plastic runners all around the edges just like an inline puck. Can't remember where I saw them though; somewhere online.

[Fury of One 6]

One of my friends actually took the pegs out of a jofa puck and put them into the ice puck. Worked out pretty well.

[hockeydoc 0]

Try the 8oz version of this product. Works great to simulate Ice weight and feel on sport court. The only draw back is it has a hard plastic outer shell, that dosn't feel like the rubber of an ice puck. Kind of a "clack. clack" feel and sound. But handles similar and shoots similar too.

http://www.hockeygiant.com/flypuck.html

[ryanhellyer 0]

Thanks for the tips everyone, keep them coming :)

Ideally I'm trying to come up with a plan which would satisfy both those wanting to practice by playing inline hockey and those who want to practice shooting on ice skates. There's currently a smooth concrete surface there at the moment which we could use instead, but I'm hoping for something which lets the stick blade slide better (sticks don't slide properly on impacting with the concrete) and which gives enough grip to use inline skates on (wheels don't grip to the concrete).

The puck gets kind of stuck and goes on edge pretty easily when trying to make passes and move the puck around.

Thanks :) That's exactly the kind of info. I'm looking for! Although I was hoping they'd be okay for passing too as it would be useful to do some passing drills on the surface as well. We could of course use inline pucks or the puck ideas mentioned above - but ice pucks would be optimal of course (and cheapest).

Ryan,

[ATLstealth09 0]

I'm not sure if ePuck still has them, but I found this puck called a "Deke" puck, and it was simply an ice puck with plastic pegs in it. I freaking loved that thing, and I shot with it as much as I could. After, oh, maybe 10000 shots and six months of constant shooting, the puck cracked and a peg fell out. Still works though. It's a great product.

[ryanhellyer 0]

a "Deke" puck, and it was simply an ice puck with plastic pegs in it.

Here they go, look quite useful. Should slide just like an inline puck I spose.

Quite pricey though and I'll need to import them. But definitely worth considering though.

Ryan,

[Roach 0]

We had a small Sport Court here for a while and I experienced the same thing. Shots weren't a problem with an ice puck so long as you were shooting stationary. Any form of puckhandling is difficult as the ice puck does not slide on Sport Court. Good luck.

[MDE3 0]

The best surface for practicing with an ice puck, other than ice is UHMW...Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyurethane...of course you have actually looked at this probably if you have considered "artificial ice" which is basically UHMW with a silicone spray.

Unfortunately as you mentioned it has drawbacks...inline wheels also slide on the surface, even shoes (if you used the silicone spray). Sorry, but for the ice players...the use of even "artificial ice" is way too expensive..it does get chewed up. It's used for one time television shows where the expense of the surface is written into the cost of the show.

I would contact Ice Court and see what they have to say about some of their new surfaces..such as "Excess", which has thousands of tiny little nodules built into the floor (as opposed to sliders on the puck itself I guess is the theory). They might send you a sample which you could try. That surface might work for both ice and inline pucks as well as allow your inline players to use their skates...

I once drilled out an ice puck and screwed 4 stainless steel round head 1/4" machine screws into the holes on both sides to use the puck on fairly smooth concrete....it was much better than a standard puck, but still pretty poor...no where close to normal movement.

[ryanhellyer 0]

That Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyurethane sounds like an interesting idea. Does anyone know how the grip with inline skates would compare to say unpainted polished concrete? If it's no slipperier than an unpainted polished concrete surface then that may be a very good option for us. Since we'll mainly be using the surface for stick and puck handling a trade-off with wheel grip maybe worth it.

I must have forgotten to add the link to the Deke Puck in my post above:

http://www.nudo.com/nu-ice/skillpad/SkillP...pad_special.htm

thanks,

Ryan

[MDE3 0]

Unfortunately the grip on the stuff would be only slightly better than on ice...it's the closest substance to ice for it's low cf. It is used industrially as a "non stick" high wear surface..so that even clays and other sticky materials will not adhere...Like I said..it's basically what they use as "artificial ice"..with a silicon sprayed to the surface. I had often thought about lining the floor of my garage with the stuff for my son when he was younger..as a practice surface...but only for shoes with some sort of high grip texture...I talked to the manufacturers about using it as a skating surface for inline, and once they knew what the basic wheel materials were made of..they suggested it would not be realistic to expect to be able to skate on it.