Synthetic Ice Rinks

Synthetic ice rinks: Investing in your own synthetic rink might actually save you both time and money over the life of the synthetic ice ...

• No need to spend hours driving to and from public rinks
• No continual shelling out for daily entrance fees
• No limitations in the time you can dedicate to training
• Rapidly improving skills -- the additional slight resistance of the synthetic ice increases core strengths and intensifies every practice
• Not to mention the sheer enjoyment of lacing on the skates and taking to the 'ice' to polish your dreams...or watching the kids get better and better at hockey or figure skating

If it can be done on refrigerated ice, it can be done on synthetic ice.

This applies almost equally to leisure skating, hockey practice, and figure skating.

Rinks with synthetic ice do not require any electricity or refrigeration. The synthetic ice is made from a plastic polymer that feels very much like real ice and can be used to practice skating, shooting and stickhandling. It can also be used for figure skating, jumps, and spins and triple lutzs.

Synthetic Ice History

The concept of synthetic ice has been around for over 30 years.

In those early years, the plastic used was very poor to skate on. It was rough; skates would catch and trip the skater, glide was poor, and the panels would pull apart or crack.

Maybe you remember the nightmare that used to be synthetic ice. The synthetic ice industry has nearly overcome nearly EVERY one of their problems:

• Unreliable joining technologies. Expansion and contraction often led to cracking panels and separations, which could lead to spills and broken bones.
• Silicone lubricants were essential, but their application was expensive and spotty, leaving dry spots that could trip up the skater.
• Hitting those dry spots on the plastic caused drag and increased friction. Skating was much harder, and your skates heated up uncomfortably.
• The silicone-based glide enhancer was also problematic. It could seal the dirt into the cracks and grooves, so that your glide was a bit like skating on sandpaper.
• The silicone lubricant also discolored in the sunlight over time.
• Because of the higher Coefficient of Friction, skating was equal parts skating and walking in skates - bor-r-r-ing.

The synthetic ice rinks industry has come a long way. Over the years, the industry leaders have invested thousands of hours into research and development to produce the most advanced skating surface available, with huge breakthroughs occurring in the last 5 years.

New Advances in Technology for Synthetic Ice
Rinks

• The surface is far superior to previous artificial ice compounds. On the best ultra-high density synthetic ice rinks, enhanced gliding is 95% like ice - it's almost identical to real ice.
• There is less resistance because of the much-reduced friction. You'll glide almost as smoothly as you do on real ice, but without the cost of refrigeration or maintenance, or the hot feet.
• Skate inside or outside, in any temperature, from very hot to the coldest arctic freeze.
• Panels now come with dove-tail or tongue-in-groove joints, which eliminate much of the expansion and contraction problems.
• Where synthetic ice rinks used to be limited to small, climate-controlled indoor applications, you can now build as big a synthetic ice rink as you like, wherever you like. In fact, very large synthetic ice rinks are springing up all across the world, both indoors and out, some of them permanent, and some of them temporary public rentals.
• Large, interlocking panels are a DIY dream! You can knock them together with a mallet in minutes. See Synthetic Ice.
• The very best panels have lubrication built into the fabric of the polymer, which ensures lifetime lubrication - thousands of hours of commercial use while still maintaining the highest skating quality.
• The more you skate on the synthetic ice, the better the glide.

Interested in synthetic ice rinks or synthetic ice materials? Contact me and I will be happy to send you more detailed information.

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