The busiest person at a hockey tournament is often the Zamboni driver.
While hockey takes up a lot of ice time in Barrie during the winter, this weekend there were more than 80 teams playing on four of five ice pads in the city. That means a lot of intermissions and a lot of flooding.
City of Barrie facility operator Brad Scharf says he and his team at the East Bayfield Community Centre will flood the ice 65 times over the course of the weekend during the 25th annual Glenn Bellerby/Moose Winooski's 'AA' tournament.
Despite a song being written back in 1990 that romanticized ice resurfacing, Scharf didn’t grow up wanting to drive the Zamboni.
“I never even thought about doing this; it wasn’t something I set out to do,” Scharf said. “I finished with one career and once I got in with the City of Barrie, I was just driving on weekends.”
The 58-year-old Scharf enjoys his job, but says there's one aspect that could be improved upon, if he could help it.
“It has its challenges, mostly with the public at times,” he says. “A lot of the teams and parents are great, but you do get the odd one that is a little less than kind.
"Parents are putting a lot of money into this sport, I understand, but we do what we can and I believe we do a good job.”
Operating the Zamboni is pretty easy, Scharf says. There are some struggles a driver can face while flooding the ice, but as long as you know how to handle it, all should go smoothly.
“One of the major things that could go wrong is running over a stick or a puck,” Scharf says. “With a puck, you have a 50/50 chance of it going through augers and into the tank. If you hit a stick, like we had happen the other day, it jams the Zamboni up and it has to go out and get serviced.”
There are mechanical issues that could arise, but with constant upkeep, it's rare.
Just like the song says, ‘Son, I know it looks keen, but that right there is one expensive machine.’ The Zambonis go for approximately $80,000 and each arena with two ice pads has at least two.
Scharf officiated junior hockey games for 20 years and says there's nothing like watching some good game.
“It's always fun to watch some really good hockey, the midget 'AAA', bantam 'AAA',” Scharf says. “That is obviously a really good perk, the chance to flood the ice as teams get ready to go at it, it is a pretty Canadian thing, I suppose.”
