Arena Ice Making for Recreational Curling
- Removable hacks (2 per curling sheet).
- Pebbling can & appropriate head (back-pack style containers are easiest).
- Ice-resurfacing machine (i.e., Zamboni)
- Circle-scribing tool
- Portable scoreboards (optional)
- Hockey players and general skaters do not require the extremely flat ice surface that is necessary for curling. Therefore, the ice-resurfacing process must be slightly modified to accommodate the needs of curling.
- The edges of the ice surface (within 15 feet of the boards) tend to be the least flat due to normal skating patterns. Talk to your ice-resurfacing machine driver about techniques to shave the ice so that it can be made flatter before you start (a diagonal criss-cross pattern like on a baseball infield seems to work well).
- After the ice is “leveled” to your satisfaction, have the ice re-surfaced with a normal ice-resurfacing machine flood.
- After this flood freezes, use the ice-resurfacing machine to do a dry-scrape along the length of all the sheets (not diagonally) as they normally would drive. Make sure they scrape the entire ice surface (not just the sheets) because it provides much better traction for people wearing shoes, and it tends not to sweat and accumulate humidity the way “shiny” ice does.
- Positioning your 1 to 5 curling sheets in the middle of the arena will avoid the major flatness problems found in any arena.
- Average NHL-size arenas are 85 ft x 200 ft, while the international-size arenas are 100 ft x 200 ft.
- If you are playing in an arena of this type, the hack location (end-to-end) is easy to locate. It is approximately even with the outside hash-marks on the edges of the face-off circles. If you need more accuracy than that, it is best to measure.
- The easiest way to draw temporary houses / circles is to make a scribe tool for drawing circles. This tool consists of a piece of 2×2 lumber, with large “Magnum-44 markers at 1-ft / 2-ft / 4-ft / 6-ft distance from a pivot screw.
- These scribe marks then become a template for using really large / fat permanent magic markers to mark the circles so that they are visible from the other end of the sheet. Remember to use a pesticide-spray container to apply a fine mist over the markings to ensure that the ink doesn’t get all over people’s pants when they slide through.
- If you are only doing 1 or 2 sheets, it sometimes makes more sense to put in the house at 1 end only. Then you don’t have to worry about sliding through the house at all. You will also require fewer hacks to do it this way. If you can convince your arena employees to paint actual houses on the ice, all the better (use standard ice-painting techniques).
- The ice can be pebbled as it would be in any curling facility.
- Fill your tank with hot water (the hotter the better).
- Use a standard curling pebbling sprinkler head to ensure that you get the correct pebble size. The back-pack style is easier to hold but are more expensive.
- It is helpful to pebble a large area of ice behind the hacks so that new curlers get used to sliding on that surface before they step onto the sheet. If you are installing practice-hacks in the arena away from the actual curling sheets, pebble those areas also.
- Typically lay the hacks on the ice (rubber-side down) to get them good and cold during the ice-resurfacer run so that only the metal plate will be heated and cooled during the installation process (if the rubber starts off at room temperature, it takes much longer to cool off).
- To get the hacks to freeze in quickly and solidly, do the following:
- Find two (2) large Rubbermaid / Tupperware containers (20 gallons) that allow the hack mount to sit flat in the bottom.
- Place one container inside the other container (nested / stacked). This produces an air gap and provides an insulation layer, so this bucket of warm water doesn’t make nasty marks on your ice.
- Fill the container 1/3 full of hot water.
- Put the container lid so you don’t spill on the sheet.
- Take the container out to the hack location on sheet 1 (the hacks can be sitting rubber-side down near their intended location on each sheet, behind the house). Keep the water container off the actual sheet playing surface to avoid the possibility of marring the ice where it really matters.
- Dip the first hack into the water (rubber-side up) with the rear metal edge deepest in the water. It’s important to get the whole metal plate wet and hot while avoiding getting the top surface of the rubber hack wet at all (otherwise loose pieces of ice will break off the rubber during the game).
- Hold the unit in the water for 10-15 seconds, shake off the excess water, and quickly place it in position on the sheet.
- Stand on the hacks to squeeze water onto the sheet and make sure that the aluminum tabs have sunk all the way into the ice. Then place a curling stone on each rubber hack to hold it down as it freezes (since we had the hacks on the ice prior to this process, they will not warm up your stones at all).
- Wait 5-10 minutes (or until all water around the hack has frozen) and start curling!
- Where to install the hacks: sheet / rink diagrams typically measure 6-feet from the back line to the beginning of the “ramp” on the rubber hack (the lowest portion of the ramp).
- To remove the hacks, simply grip at the rear with both hands and pull straight up. It is very important to pull with both hands to avoid bending the hack. Some ice-chipping may be required to remove it after a flood.
