Winter Olympics Electric Zamboni Fail

Jalopnik ^ | February 16, 2010 | Matt Hardigree

[KingOfVagabonds]

The electric Zambonis — part of Canada's attempt at a green Vancouver Olympics — failed multiple times this evening, causing a massive delay in in the middle of the Men's 500-meter speedskating event. Hmm, wethinks it needs more internal combustion!

[library user]

Was it logged in?

[BigEdLB]

Maybe where it was plugged in for the `overnight charge` had the power shut off for failure to pay the electric bill?

[Mengerian]

Plus the emissions from internal combustion are much more “enviro-friendly” than landfilling old cadmiun-lead acid batteries for the electric vehicles.

Not to mention the environmental devastation caused by the mining of battery metals (nickel, cadmium, lead, etc.)

[umgud]

They prolly plugged them into solar panels overnite.

[discostu]

They weren’t Zambonis, they were Olympia ice-prep machines Zamboni’s primary competitor.

[Let's Roll]

Yes, but they’re SO green. Like liberalism itself, the green intentions are always more important than whether something actually ‘works’.

[Cailleach]

I was just going to say that NBC was even oh so careful not to call them Zamboni. :)

[Tallguy]

I thought Zambonis (sp?) were powered by propane like some industrial lift trucks? Can’t get much cleaner than propane, right?

A battery-powered Zamboni? Who’s bright idea was that?!

[B Knotts]

Correct.

http://www.zamboni.com/welcome.html

PARAMOUNT, CALIFORNIA (February 16, 2010) – This past weekend, the ice resurfacing equipment at one of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games apparently malfunctioned and was unable to perform its resurfacing task. These machines were not manufactured by the Zamboni Company.

A few media outlets have published inaccurate information regarding those machines, associating the Zamboni brand name with the malfunctioning ice resurfacers.

While it is unfortunate that there was an interruption to the Winter Olympic events, please note: the resurfacers which were on the ice during those events were not Zamboni® brand ice resurfacers and should not be referred to as “Zamboni machines”.

The Zamboni Company is working to assist the local venues to remedy the situation and as further information becomes available, it will be posted on the Company’s web site: www.zamboni.com

With a history that spans over six decades, the Zamboni Company preserves its founder’s legacy as the leader in ice resurfacing technology and remains the overwhelming choice for ice rink operators throughout the world. Zamboni was proud to be the exclusive supplier to the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Salt Lake, Nagano, Lillehammer, Lake Placid, Sapporo, Innsbruck and Squaw Valley. Zamboni also participated in the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary and Sarajevo.

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Looks like they used the Olympia machines because Olympia is a Canadian company, whereas Zamboni is in the U.S.A.

Also, they are apparently resolving this issue with the Olympias by flying in...a Zamboni!

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/speed-skating/news/newsid=43070.html

[discostu]

The whole thing kind of reminds me of a tale a friend of mine who worked for IBM back in their heyday used to tell. He was at the grocery store and there was a delay at the checkout which the clerk said was “because the IBM was down”, he looked at the register and could clearly see the NCR logo (if you watch the NBC clip you can see the Olympia logo). He always said that on the one hand he was annoyed at his company getting blamed for NCR’s problem, but on the other hand he was quite pleased that his company was so ubiquitous that people just assumed networked computers were IBM in spite of the logo. I’m sure Zamboni is quite pleased that people think all ice surfacing machines are Zamboni, though they’d rather Olympia hadn’t screwed up in the Olympics.

[dogcaller]

Olympia has a technical fix for their machines...wind powered turbine to be added.

[WOBBLY BOB]

They should get Algore out there with a bucket and squeegee.

[G8 Diplomat]

There’ve been a lot of fails at these Olympics—the luge track, the torch, the Zamboni, and there was a problem with the timing at the start of the men’s & women’s biathalons the other day; some people were held too long and others too short.