synthetic ice

[flyweightphantom 1]

My town has an outdoor rink which we play roller hockey on. I guess the town just approved to lay down synthetic ice. They have a ton of it laying in the parking lot waiting to be installed. Anyone have experience with this? Does it ruin skates and do I have to have them sharpened differently? Also what do most consider the best company for synthetic ice, seems pretty cool to have a section put down at my house?

[shoeshine boy 242]

somewhere there's a thread about this but I'll repeat myself here.

a buddy of mine (who has WAY too much money) has a synthetic rink in his back yard. it's small, about the size of the neutral zone turned sideways. skating is kind of weird at first. it's best to start with some scooter pushes until you get your legs. stopping is easier than expected and going backwards is almost impossible. it doesn't ruin skates but you'll probably want to sharpen them afterwards. if you're going to play on it regularly get a second pair. expect to have lots of white "shavings" in your gear.

maintenance is key in keeping it up. it takes a LOT of work.

[bostonjuniorblackhawks 1]

somewhere there's a thread about this but I'll repeat myself here.

a buddy of mine (who has WAY too much money) has a synthetic rink in his back yard. it's small, about the size of the neutral zone turned sideways. skating is kind of weird at first. it's best to start with some scooter pushes until you get your legs. stopping is easier than expected and going backwards is almost impossible. it doesn't ruin skates but you'll probably want to sharpen them afterwards. if you're going to play on it regularly get a second pair. expect to have lots of white "shavings" in your gear.

maintenance is key in keeping it up. it takes a LOT of work.

almost put an outdoor synthetic rink in my backyard, but I realized that it would be way to much work. Indoor synthetic rinks are sweet and a bit easier to take care of.

[furlanitalia 1]

It's actually not that much work if you get a good quality rink. With proper maintenance you will get virtually no shavings and clean up will be a breeze. I say this from first hand experience training on synthetic ice and managing a synthetic ice training center. Consider it takes roughly 15 minutes to zamboni a real ice rink, the preparation and maintenance of a synthetic rink isn't that different. It shouldn't take more then 30 min every time you use it.

Skating is kind of weird at first because it doesn't let you cheat. The extra resistance forces you to bend your knees, and after about 5 minutes you'll be fine. Backwards skating isn't impossible; in fact you can do anything on synthetic that you can do on regular (including the Mike Legg lacrosse pickup from behind the net).

(Just a note that the kid in this video was 12 at the time - no problem with puck control or skating forwards or backwards)

[bostonjuniorblackhawks 1]

He was saying it was a pain to take care of the rink becuase it was outdoors and I'm assuming no sort of cover. Indoor synthetic ice rinks or something covered shouldn't be a problem to maintain

[flyweightphantom 1]

very cool, thanks for the answer guess i'll see in a few weeks how it is.

[ice365 0]

My town has an outdoor rink which we play roller hockey on. I guess the town just approved to lay down synthetic ice. They have a ton of it laying in the parking lot waiting to be installed. Anyone have experience with this? Does it ruin skates and do I have to have them sharpened differently? Also what do most consider the best company for synthetic ice, seems pretty cool to have a section put down at my house?

phantom what community do you live in? The problem with a lot of communities, residential and training centers is that they do not go and test other products before they buy. I know it is tough for residential customers as it is tough to go and test all the products out there. A training center called gamebreakers in Nova Scotia did test out a lot of products before they intstalled 5000sq ft of it, they chose IcePro. That will answer your last question.

[flyweightphantom 1]

I'm in a residential area of NY (about 30mins from the city). I'm going to try to find out what brand the town bought, i'm sure its cheap and will be ruined quickly.