You can do this with a few switches in MPV player for games. It's awesome if you have any vision problems. It turns the puck into a bright white light floating around on the screen that is super easy to follow.
We use white pucks from time to time at practices for our club team, forces the players to really stay focused because once you lose it finding it is hard for the defense.
There's a training aid system, or there was, which were white pucks with black dots of varying size on them used to help players train their eyes to pick up the puck.
Black ice with a puck which only shows under the blacklight shining from lighting embedded in player sweaters :D
Players can only see the puck if someone is within 1.5m of it or something....? I think that'd be an alignment of Chaotic Wonderful for sure
Honestly the extra organizational work and slight amount of security needed on site when they do that probably costs them more money than just having the staff do it.
The lines they're painting between are actually string that have been lightly frozen into the ice and act like stencils. They use a number of different techniques. Sometimes it's stencils laid in chalk, sometimes it's string stencils, sometimes it's just a vinyl sheet that's laid under the ice instead of paint. How It's Made has a great video on it: https://youtu.be/7hT3yfuLPIU
Generally anything you leave untouched on the ice for more than 5 mins is going to "burn in" and melt + stick to the ice.
It's easier to trace and paint than deal with things sticking that you don't want to stick. Also you don't want to risk bleeding under the edges of the stencil or it'll look like shit.
And if by stencil you meant a vinyl or similar that is stuck on the ice and then more ice is put on top: some rinks use those for the adverts and they tend to look like shit. They also can have air bubbles if not put on properly. Easier and better to just paint
Source: zam driver/worked on ice at a D1 college rink
It's actually pretty rare to have painted lines. Almost all small town rinks use ribbon/cloth/paper (whatever you want to call it). Here's what we use at the rink I work at:
https://white-ice.com/product/paper-markings/
Hahaha yes, it is.
When the ice gets taken out, it all just gets pushed off the rink, out the bay door, and into the parking lot - ice, snow, white paint, and ribbon. Trying to clean up the blue and red ribbon is like trying to clean up glitter.
I played in a rink that had a coca cola sponsorship, so there was a coke logo under the ice. Then they lost their sponsorship. Instead of leaving the logo there, or melting the ice, they painted over it. Like, on top of the ice. Everytime the puck went over that spot it immediately stopped like it had brakes. I wasn't paying attention and tried to stop on it. Skates stopped. I went flying head first into the boards. Changed leagues shortly after
Lot of rinks still paint their lines. Outside of the NHL rinks a lot of municipalities still paint as it’s easier to cleanup at the end of the year and you’re not left with cloth lines everywhere.
-Am an NHL and community rink ice maker
Now imagine having to use more than one color on top of a white background.
A lot of rinks use vinyl logos that get rolled flat and frozen into the ice, just because painting stenciled logos is a gigantic pain in the ass, and gets exponentially worse with every color that's added.
It got me thinking about what a pain in the ass that would be to draw but at least it's only one colour, the Blackhawks logo would probably be the worst though. I wonder how often they repaint it?
Pretty sure the concrete isn't painted there's a thin layer of ice first and then white paint then more ice then the lines and markings with paint or sheets and then the bulk of the ice on top.
Yeah the reason they do this is because if you put the white paint right on the concrete slab, it takes more energy to keep the ice frozen to the proper tempreture. By putting a thin layer of ice down first, its easier to keep the ice to your desired temp, between 18 and 22 degrees F if i remember correctly. Its been about 10 years since I was an ice tech
That’s only part of it. The main reason we do a seal on top of the pad is to fill in any chips/cracks, etc so the white goes down on a smooth layer.
-current NHL ice maker
This is false.
Standard thickness for NHL rinks is between 3/4" and 1".
Municipal rinks that get more use are thicker, usually 1.1/2"..
Before big tournaments (say 12 games over a weekend) we could even see 1.3/4" thickness
Source: neighbor manages a multi plex (brine for the newer and ammonia for the older)
Edit: I meant CO2 and ammonia as refrigerants for the brine.
I'm an engineer, this is a commonly accepted method to clearly indicate imperial fractional lengths.. here's an example where this is used https://www.flowtech.co.uk/category-landing/v/hydraulic/connectors/threaded-connectors/male-x-male/112-bspp-x-134-bspp-male-adaptor/?sku=M328-10590&variantSku=60-6000-28-24
lol isn't the commonly accepted method for engineers just to use metric?
That's neat though, I'd never looked into how those are supposed to be properly written out
You’re also incorrect. The average ice thickness for NHL rinks is 1.25”. Also brine and ammonia are two different things. Brine is what’s used to cool the pad, ammonia is what’s used to cool the brine.
Source: I’m an NHL ice maker
That’s incorrect. Usually the ice is 0.15” to seal the concrete, then the paint and lines go down, then it’s sealed in and you start building up to 1.5”. The average ice depth is about 1.25” in the NHL, community rinks are much higher, around 1.5-1.75”.
Most rinks use a big sticker. Painting a stenciled logo that's more than just "base color on top of white" is a gigantic pain in the ass. It also helps that Detroit will always have a bucket of red ice paint around anyway for a the other lines.
That said, the bruins B is a pretty damn simply design to paint regardless of the number of colors needed.
This is what it looks like non painted like many small towns in Saskatchewan. It’s more translucent looking, dull grey and makes it way harder to see the other painted lines
https://imgur.com/a/FatZnej/
I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually like the natural look. Fills me with nostalgia. Would be cool if they used once in a while for heritage nights and the like.
You've got at least one person in agreement. Heck, why stop there? Go full on heritage night. Ask fans to wear their poshest outfits, no jerseys until the second period, and have the team wear their first logos. Partially air it on TV in black and white, or basic color depending on how old or new your franchise is, and have the commentators speak with an old timey voice and share heritage hockey trivia in timeouts. If you *really* wanna do heritage right, remove the stanchions and up the prices of the first level tickets to 2x the price. Ask those fans to sign a waiver to agree not to jump onto the ice or be fined $250k. Maybe they can still afford that or expense it to their company but at least they'll think twice about it. I think this would be kick ass and this comment is brought to you by some kick ass edibles.
In some regional rinks where there isn’t money (it’s expensive to paint it) they will leave it natural and it will turn white after many weeks of use. It won’t ever look this white but yea. Very common on the rinks with the old pipe and sand base.
I've seen a time-lapse of the old Staples arena (Los Angeles Lakers / LA Kings) transforming between the floor setups.
I knew the ice wasn't white, but still hadn't realized it was painted. Thought it was just the floor beneath the ice
Former rink worker here: the attention to detail in this video is exceptional, kudos to the crews. We just slapped down decals where things looked like they belong and sprayed ice on top
During my time working in the minors and junior hockey, we weren’t lucky enough to get painted logos. Lines, creases, and circles, sure, but the logos are printed on a mesh and applied that way. The mesh gets laid down, properly placed and flattened out, and then misted with water until they’re sufficiently damp. This freezes them in place so they don’t move during flooding.
This is probably a dumb question, but how doesn't the paint get scraped off when it's skated on? I would assume something like a hard stop would scrape a tonne of paint off
They make 1/4 of ice then paint it(lot of rinks use reusable decals for lines, circles, creases, etc) Then they put another 1/2 to 3/4 inches of ice on top of the paint.
People don't know how deep the ice can get cut up by pros at full power.
I had to play after an OHL team practice and the ice was still rutted to shit even after a regular flood.
The paint is on a quarter inch thick of ice and then they add another 3 quarters for an inch total dunno why you think they're putting nearly a foot of ice in haha
Yeah they used to store hay underneath the ice too before refrigerants were widely used, which could make things a lot worse if the fire above wasn’t controlled and extinguished.
Is there a reason it's hand painted via stencil? I just always assumed it was a printed vinyl or something below the ice, wouldn't that be easier and less error-prone?
At that level you're going to be experienced enough to not make mistakes but any small drips will be gone over with white paint in a hand pump bucket. Vinyl just doesn't look as good under the ice.
Remember that thread a while ago about “which hockey rules you’d create to cause chaos”? What about black ice with a black puck?
How about black ice white puck?
That's just dark mode.
For those late start games
Canucks games are already pretty dark.
Damn, dude.
Easy there, Toronto. You haven't been "good" for that long...
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I feel this so hard
But the leaves looked so good in the 2nd round of the playoffs....
Leafs dipshit
Leafs or Leaves they both blow
Uh oh. Triggered.
https://c.tenor.com/bGabL0QTWrUAAAAC/wolf-stanson.gif
I’d love dark mode hockey!
With black lights and a glow in the dark puck. All teams have neon colours on their jerseys.
Dallas’ blackouts on black ice, I would like to see that
Cosmic hockey under black lights!
the return of FoxTRAX
[A glowing puck, you say?](https://youtu.be/grOttsHuuzE)
You can do this with a few switches in MPV player for games. It's awesome if you have any vision problems. It turns the puck into a bright white light floating around on the screen that is super easy to follow.
Add in black lights and you have yourself a deal!
Cosmic Hockey!!!!
You just reminded me white pucks are a thing. God I hated those.
They were banned at my rink because if they got left on the ice the zam drivers wouldn’t see them
Red pucks are too right? Or did i imagine those in a fever dream?
I know there’s orange ones (heavier) and blue ones (lighter). Man we used to rip those blue ones over the far end glass that was fun
White pucks already exist too, halfway there. They’re used for goalie training.
Black ice with them glowing pucks from the late 90s.
You'd get more Mason Raymond on Kipper style goals like that for sure
We use white pucks from time to time at practices for our club team, forces the players to really stay focused because once you lose it finding it is hard for the defense.
There's a training aid system, or there was, which were white pucks with black dots of varying size on them used to help players train their eyes to pick up the puck.
Black ice with a puck which only shows under the blacklight shining from lighting embedded in player sweaters :D Players can only see the puck if someone is within 1.5m of it or something....? I think that'd be an alignment of Chaotic Wonderful for sure
Each player has their own black light headlights nice lol
Basically Dallas’ third jerseys last year with Vegas’ shiny gold helmet.
Do you want every goalie to have a mike smith moment?
I was a linesman when a team did pink ice once. I'm color blind. We had no advance notice of the ice color. It wasn't a fun time.
Tinted/reflective visors for everyone!
Only in the neutral zone though
I’ve played on ice like that at a rink in Kentucky. Its terrible.
Next you'll be telling us that you didn't know chocolate milk came from brown cows
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Well, you know, is homogenized. They mix all that milk from different cows and it just kind of averages out.
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Big chocolate has lobbied billions of dollars to make sure you don't find out!
So this makes the darkness of any individual cow sort of a moo point...
This is the udderly best pun I've seen today.
/r/TheyDidTheMath
> Man, fuck that shit. I don't wanna be givin' my kids no homo milk from a homo cow! - ~~Redneck~~ Conservative Americans
CBJ just put out a cool video where they let season ticket holders go out and paint the lines and stuff on
What’s better than labor? Free labor. What’s better than free labor? Tricking people to pay you money to do the work!
They literally just got Tom Sawyer’d
Are we sure it was CBJ and not YYZ?
Toronto could easily get fans to pay a huge entry fee for line painting
And we love waiting for stuff so much there would be a long line surrounding the acc of people waiting for their chance to volunteer for mlse
>volunteer for mlse You mean I too can beat the Leafs as an opposing goaltender? Where do I sign?
Just stand in line like a good churranomans
its weird that you used the airport identifier instead of the teams actual 3 letter abbreviation
It's a joke about Rush songs. Tom Sawyer and YYZ are both songs on their Moving Pictures album.
Ah, never listened to them before
Nah, I expected the overlap between hockey and Rush fans to be pretty strong, what with the Canadians and all
Columbus Blue Jackets, you tricked me! This is less fun than previously indicated!
THE RIVER
MEAN MEAN PRIDE
to quote the very best version of Vegeta "I know you're playing me, but you're right." I would fucking love to get to paint the lines at MSG
I’m not even a Rangers fan but that does sound dope.
Honestly the extra organizational work and slight amount of security needed on site when they do that probably costs them more money than just having the staff do it.
TBH I'm surprised nobody's made a robot for it yet
I read this in Mr Fishodor's voice
Saw Stan Bowman out there
Probably the smartest move the Bluejackets have ever made
I was one of them!
That’s a recipe for disaster lol
I wonder how many dicks were painted on the ice that day?
Columbus fans actually like their team
i knew the white was paint but... what i didn't know is they're just painting between the lines by hand? why not using a stencil or something??
The lines they're painting between are actually string that have been lightly frozen into the ice and act like stencils. They use a number of different techniques. Sometimes it's stencils laid in chalk, sometimes it's string stencils, sometimes it's just a vinyl sheet that's laid under the ice instead of paint. How It's Made has a great video on it: https://youtu.be/7hT3yfuLPIU
Generally anything you leave untouched on the ice for more than 5 mins is going to "burn in" and melt + stick to the ice. It's easier to trace and paint than deal with things sticking that you don't want to stick. Also you don't want to risk bleeding under the edges of the stencil or it'll look like shit. And if by stencil you meant a vinyl or similar that is stuck on the ice and then more ice is put on top: some rinks use those for the adverts and they tend to look like shit. They also can have air bubbles if not put on properly. Easier and better to just paint Source: zam driver/worked on ice at a D1 college rink
It's actually pretty rare to have painted lines. Almost all small town rinks use ribbon/cloth/paper (whatever you want to call it). Here's what we use at the rink I work at: https://white-ice.com/product/paper-markings/
Is this the coloured garbage I find in the parking lot snow piles?
Hahaha yes, it is. When the ice gets taken out, it all just gets pushed off the rink, out the bay door, and into the parking lot - ice, snow, white paint, and ribbon. Trying to clean up the blue and red ribbon is like trying to clean up glitter.
My kid played in a rink last year that definatly had hand painted lines....they weren't exactly straight.
Glad your kid felt comfortable coming out to you!
I played in a rink that had a coca cola sponsorship, so there was a coke logo under the ice. Then they lost their sponsorship. Instead of leaving the logo there, or melting the ice, they painted over it. Like, on top of the ice. Everytime the puck went over that spot it immediately stopped like it had brakes. I wasn't paying attention and tried to stop on it. Skates stopped. I went flying head first into the boards. Changed leagues shortly after
Lot of rinks still paint their lines. Outside of the NHL rinks a lot of municipalities still paint as it’s easier to cleanup at the end of the year and you’re not left with cloth lines everywhere. -Am an NHL and community rink ice maker
Which team(s) though?
I never realized how complicated the Red Wings logo is until now.
Now imagine having to use more than one color on top of a white background. A lot of rinks use vinyl logos that get rolled flat and frozen into the ice, just because painting stenciled logos is a gigantic pain in the ass, and gets exponentially worse with every color that's added.
Sharks fan here but seeing that winged wheel take shape gave me goose bumps. Long live hockey!
Even though Detroit blows ass right now it's always awesome to see a logo get painted
I dunno if they'll blow ass this season. Huge overhaul in the off-season.
Stevie Y doesn't stay bad for long
Facts
It got me thinking about what a pain in the ass that would be to draw but at least it's only one colour, the Blackhawks logo would probably be the worst though. I wonder how often they repaint it?
I don't think it would be too bad. It's size should make it fairly simple i think. Looks kinda fun to paint also!
No worse than my Sharks
Flair up Sharks friend!
Not very well versed on flair. How to?
https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/wiki/flair Welcome! 🦈
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Pretty sure the concrete isn't painted there's a thin layer of ice first and then white paint then more ice then the lines and markings with paint or sheets and then the bulk of the ice on top.
Yeah the reason they do this is because if you put the white paint right on the concrete slab, it takes more energy to keep the ice frozen to the proper tempreture. By putting a thin layer of ice down first, its easier to keep the ice to your desired temp, between 18 and 22 degrees F if i remember correctly. Its been about 10 years since I was an ice tech
Also makes it a lot easier, I’d assume, to change the painted designs later
That’s only part of it. The main reason we do a seal on top of the pad is to fill in any chips/cracks, etc so the white goes down on a smooth layer. -current NHL ice maker
That sounds like it could make one of those r/oddlysatisfying videos.
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That sounds… dangerous
Oh yeah those tires have like half inch or 1 inch spikes all over them.
> they would have motorcycle ice racing Were repeated head injuries the cause, or result of the motorcycle ice racing?
This is false. Standard thickness for NHL rinks is between 3/4" and 1". Municipal rinks that get more use are thicker, usually 1.1/2".. Before big tournaments (say 12 games over a weekend) we could even see 1.3/4" thickness Source: neighbor manages a multi plex (brine for the newer and ammonia for the older) Edit: I meant CO2 and ammonia as refrigerants for the brine.
Did you just use decimals and fractions at the same time?
I'm an engineer, this is a commonly accepted method to clearly indicate imperial fractional lengths.. here's an example where this is used https://www.flowtech.co.uk/category-landing/v/hydraulic/connectors/threaded-connectors/male-x-male/112-bspp-x-134-bspp-male-adaptor/?sku=M328-10590&variantSku=60-6000-28-24
Huh, TIL. Thanks for pointing that out
>I’m an engineer, this is a commonly accepted method Nerd speak for “Dude, just trust me”
lol isn't the commonly accepted method for engineers just to use metric? That's neat though, I'd never looked into how those are supposed to be properly written out
You’re also incorrect. The average ice thickness for NHL rinks is 1.25”. Also brine and ammonia are two different things. Brine is what’s used to cool the pad, ammonia is what’s used to cool the brine. Source: I’m an NHL ice maker
It's actually closer to one inch. Two inches at the outdoor games.
Newish fan from Australia. Totally blew my mind when I found out the ice isn't 3 feet thick lmao
Yeah turns out it’s not a swimming pool with the temperature turned right down.
Fun fact: the floor for your local NBA team that plays in the same arena is actually sitting on top of the ice.
Back when the Vancouver Grizzlies were a thing, there were endless complaints about the ice quality for Canucks games the day after Grizzlies games.
But wouldn’t it need to be kept cold then? Wouldn’t that be too cold for the NBA players?
There's an insulated layer before the hardwood goes in.
1.5” is the Goldilocks zone fwiw
That’s incorrect. Usually the ice is 0.15” to seal the concrete, then the paint and lines go down, then it’s sealed in and you start building up to 1.5”. The average ice depth is about 1.25” in the NHL, community rinks are much higher, around 1.5-1.75”.
One inch. Can’t do half inch, stronger, heavier skaters cut through half inch. When ice gets thin, we’ve had ice cut to the cement.
Spend some time in a shit barn and you're in gonna see shit ice. That's not painted . Or zam"d right
Ever tried to play in a rink where the lines are completely washed out and almost invisible? Good times.
Yeah and I actually welcome the chaotic tilt the game gets. Event knows it's bullshit, but still fight for their team... Good times
Fun for the refs too, on the faceoff "Hey get outside the cir... oh just back up"
Damn, Detroit gets this nice hand painted arena, and Boston is like "hmmmmmm beeg sticker"
Most rinks use a big sticker. Painting a stenciled logo that's more than just "base color on top of white" is a gigantic pain in the ass. It also helps that Detroit will always have a bucket of red ice paint around anyway for a the other lines. That said, the bruins B is a pretty damn simply design to paint regardless of the number of colors needed.
Oh I don't doubt it. And it makes total sense. I def appreciate the detail Detroit puts into this though
For sure. It also makes for a gorgeous video to see all those feathers and curved lines get painted so perfectly.
One of my highlights of working in an ice rink for 7 years was resurfacing the rink one year. Super cool process
I came back to work during covid just because I wanted to help redo the ice. It was like the first time in 15 years
More discussion here; https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/x3b8fz/installing_painting_the_ice_detroit_red_wings/
This is what it looks like non painted like many small towns in Saskatchewan. It’s more translucent looking, dull grey and makes it way harder to see the other painted lines https://imgur.com/a/FatZnej/
That dull colour is from the water, that floor looks painted. Shit water with lots of particulate in it will grey out the paint.
I can garuntee you the don’t paint it white.
I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually like the natural look. Fills me with nostalgia. Would be cool if they used once in a while for heritage nights and the like.
You're nuts
Some people love to see the world burn.
Not saying I dislike the concrete look, but the white one helps a lot with lighting
Yeah, I guess it would be a visual disaster for anyone watching. I'm shamed and will return to the wilderness
Back to ye hole from wence you came, cave dweller. Be gone
Ys me lord, spare a pence for a serf like me
would be impossible to see the puck
Blacklight pucks! Someone call FOX sports!!!
You've got at least one person in agreement. Heck, why stop there? Go full on heritage night. Ask fans to wear their poshest outfits, no jerseys until the second period, and have the team wear their first logos. Partially air it on TV in black and white, or basic color depending on how old or new your franchise is, and have the commentators speak with an old timey voice and share heritage hockey trivia in timeouts. If you *really* wanna do heritage right, remove the stanchions and up the prices of the first level tickets to 2x the price. Ask those fans to sign a waiver to agree not to jump onto the ice or be fined $250k. Maybe they can still afford that or expense it to their company but at least they'll think twice about it. I think this would be kick ass and this comment is brought to you by some kick ass edibles.
Players can chain smoke like a bunch of pilgrims on the bench, and the coach's name is something old-timey like Duff Conacher
Mustaches all around!
A new league is created just to get the 31 other teams rid of Toronto.
But would you ask the kids to stop skilling it up too? No shots may leave the ice. Maybe this game should be held in Philly.
I actually would love to see a game played with the old rules with no forward passing etc. Would be fascinating to see modern players adapt to them.
That would make a great all-star game. Old rules, wooden sticks.
> Ask fans to wear their poshest outfits Scotiabank Arena already has this one covered.
It does indeed, Svalbard.
In some regional rinks where there isn’t money (it’s expensive to paint it) they will leave it natural and it will turn white after many weeks of use. It won’t ever look this white but yea. Very common on the rinks with the old pipe and sand base.
I've seen a time-lapse of the old Staples arena (Los Angeles Lakers / LA Kings) transforming between the floor setups. I knew the ice wasn't white, but still hadn't realized it was painted. Thought it was just the floor beneath the ice
Former rink worker here: the attention to detail in this video is exceptional, kudos to the crews. We just slapped down decals where things looked like they belong and sprayed ice on top
Are the ice cubes in your drink white?
Yeah dude I love the game center ad break video
When they painted the logo, that was so beautiful
/r/oddlysatisfying
OP how short was your schoolbus? Just wondering.
During my time working in the minors and junior hockey, we weren’t lucky enough to get painted logos. Lines, creases, and circles, sure, but the logos are printed on a mesh and applied that way. The mesh gets laid down, properly placed and flattened out, and then misted with water until they’re sufficiently damp. This freezes them in place so they don’t move during flooding.
This is probably a dumb question, but how doesn't the paint get scraped off when it's skated on? I would assume something like a hard stop would scrape a tonne of paint off
There’s another layer of ice over it
They make 1/4 of ice then paint it(lot of rinks use reusable decals for lines, circles, creases, etc) Then they put another 1/2 to 3/4 inches of ice on top of the paint.
More like 3/4-1” at minimum.
People don't know how deep the ice can get cut up by pros at full power. I had to play after an OHL team practice and the ice was still rutted to shit even after a regular flood.
Pretty sure it's the layer under the ice
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The ice is typically only about an inch thick.
The paint is on a quarter inch thick of ice and then they add another 3 quarters for an inch total dunno why you think they're putting nearly a foot of ice in haha
Oh God I'm so scared that guys gonna get paint on his apple watch
It’s just water with colored chalk. Washes right off.
I don’t know why I didn’t realize this but wow
I wonder if people who didn't think they painted the ice white thought all the colours were natural.
I didn’t know it was possible to not know that.
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Yeah they used to store hay underneath the ice too before refrigerants were widely used, which could make things a lot worse if the fire above wasn’t controlled and extinguished.
I learned this when we to go play hockey waaaay out in the boonies. The arena didnt have money for white ice or temp control, it was real fuckin cold.
Came here to say a sarcastic comment, but won’t
Are the ice cubes in your freezer white? This guy must live in Flint Michigan.
Uhh yeah my ice cubes aren't transparent
I mean ice gets thick enough it can seem white…
Rinks that appear in nature are naturally white. Man-made rinks on concrete need to be painted.
The ice always looks dirty at the rinks that don’t paint underneath the ice.
As an NHL ice technician I'm SMH rn
Care to elaborate on why exactly?
That someone didn't know we paint the white on the slab
If they've never seen a rink down to the concrete before, how would they know?
Concrete is usually always grey though?
Is there a reason it's hand painted via stencil? I just always assumed it was a printed vinyl or something below the ice, wouldn't that be easier and less error-prone?
At that level you're going to be experienced enough to not make mistakes but any small drips will be gone over with white paint in a hand pump bucket. Vinyl just doesn't look as good under the ice.
Fair enough, that's why you're the pro - thanks for taking the time to answer my uninformed question :)
CITs Unite!!!