March 16, 2005

It appeals to the non-conformist in me

The AHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team is experimenting with a new ice surface.

The Sabres offered to try it and, after some experimentation, settled on painting the sheet in what they call "electric powder blue." To offset the new colored surface, arena officials decided to make the blue lines fluorescent orange, which is also the color used for the faceoff circles.

The center line, normally red, is now dark blue.

I like it. A lot. From the few pictures I've seen I already like it. One of my biggest gripes about televised hockey is that the glare in some arenas makes it darn near impossible to follow the action, and you can give yourself a headache, like staring into the sun.

The Cleveland Barons will be Rochester's first opponents on the new ice on Sunday.

Posted by Ted at March 16, 2005 06:09 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Wow, that sounds great. I wonder if the darker surface would make it even harder to follow the puck, though.

I say the puck oughta have a transparent shell with a red stroke light in the center. Slapshots and seizures! Yyeah!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at March 16, 2005 11:33 AM

Could always make the pucks themselves white so it looks like the players are batting around urinal cakes.

Posted by: Brian J. at March 16, 2005 12:54 PM

don't like it. reminds me of playing inline hockey on the blue floor at skate city.

Posted by: Derek at March 16, 2005 05:55 PM

You guys are nuts. The puck should glow a bit, and have a little tail like a comet on slapshots.

Posted by: Victor at March 16, 2005 07:30 PM

HERETIC!!!!!!

Posted by: GEBIV at March 16, 2005 09:32 PM

When they experimented with the glowing puck (electronically - like those 'first down lines' on televised football) it annoyed the heck out of me, except for when the puck was hidden by the boards. That was kinda helpful, but it took awhile to get used to it. The comet tail on shots and otherwise fuzzy glowball puck was just silly.

Posted by: Ted at March 17, 2005 08:41 AM
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