Of the four major team sports in the United States, training for hockey in the offseason is the least convenient. Not everyone has access to an ice rink where they can skate and work on drills during the offseason. But improvements to synthetic ice in recent years have made it a feasible offseason training product....
Of the four major team sports in the United States, training for hockey in the offseason is the least convenient.
Not everyone has access to an ice rink where they can skate and work on drills during the offseason. But improvements to synthetic ice in recent years have made it a feasible offseason training product.
Synthetic ice came onto the market in the 1950s as a way to skate outdoors because it does not require electricity to operate and can withstand warm temperatures. But the plastic used six decades ago (polyoxymethylene) caused great resistance, made it difficult to skate on, and even with lubricant added, the surface was uneven.
With vast improvements in technology in the past 60 years, however, top synthetic ices on the market — many of which are self-lubricated — have about 90 percent of the glide factor as natural ice. In the past, poor gliding wore down blades to the point where they needed to be re-sharpened in less than 30 minutes of training.
Thanks to these improvements, many NHL players have installed scaled-down rinks at their homes to train on the surface, including Montreal Canadiens defenseman Phillip Danault and Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad in the past few months. Plus, the Toronto Maple Leafs added a synthetic ice pad to their training facility, the MasterCard Centre, prior to this season.
The size of these synthetic ice rinks vary. Some setups are about the size of a pro hockey rink, while others are just 7.5 feet by 9.5 feet and fit in a basement. Since the rinks are composed of panels of polymer, some companies allow consumers to order theirs at custom shapes and dimensions. They also can install the rinks themselves in one day and use them year-round, unlike backyard ice rinks, which can take over a week to install and are not usable all year.
Cleaning the product is not much of a hassle, either, as consumers can use a vacuum cleaner and broom to clean up polymer shavings after use. Mopping and drying the surface or using a pressure washer on a larger surface once every few weeks helps keep it clean like any other floor surface.
Synthetic ice is here to stay, and here to help hockey players train more efficiently.
