Locals in the small Canadian town of Estey’s Bridge said it was taking hours to clean the outdoor rink by hand previously.
A small Canadian community took matters in their own hands when volunteers fashioned a Zamboni out of a lawnmower when their local rink was long overdue for an ice resurfacing.
“She drives like a Cadillac,” said James Dorcas, of Estey’s Bridge, New Brunswick.
Dorcas and other local volunteers said they were trying to come up with ideas on how to effectively clean a small outdoor ice rink that was being cleaned by hand.
"It took a lot of shoveling, a lot of scraping — we did it all by hand," rink attendant Evan Brewer told Global News. "We'd work away at it for four or five hours and play hockey on it for about an hour and then go home and do it all again the next day.
As they considered solutions, their thoughts turned to Dorcas’ 1990s ride-on lawn mower that was sitting in his garage, and decided to take it apart and rebuild it into a mini-Zamboni.
"We yanked the deck and stuff off it, put some water tanks on it that we run hot water through," Dorcas explained. "We put a blade on the front, so that it scrapes ice, and made it look like a Zamboni the best we could."
Although the makeshift Zamboni only travels about two miles an hour, Brewer joked, and may not turn back on if the engine is turned off, the community said kids are now able to enjoy more time on the rink thanks to their invention.
“Just seeing the kids and the community come out and use it and use the rink and seeing everybody get a laugh over the Zamboni, that is the best part,” Brewer said.
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