What does it take to clean off the ice?

I was convinced that there were no perks to being a Sports Editor for the 'Prince.' It's long hours and it was a thankless job. You listen to people complain about getting no coverage, too much coverage, bad coverage, and you wonder why you do it.

Well on Friday, Feb. 27 I found out that it's all worth it. I was able to drive the 'zamboni' at Baker Rink. Actually, I was able to drive the Olympia Millennium ice-resurfacing machine. Princeton does not own a Zamboni anymore, having replaced it with the Olympia two years ago.

Confused? Let me explain.

Zamboni is now just a brand name, and the products that the Zamboni company sell are ice-resurfacing machines. Most people, however, incorrectly refer to all such machines as zambonis.

Paul Merrow, Matt Conti, Don Pfau, and Jeff Durepos know more about these machines than anyone on campus. They are lucky enough to be the drivers of the Olympia machine at Baker.

"Other than cosmetics there is no real difference between the two machines," Pfau said.

For simplicity's sake in this column — and in the 29,834 times I will tell this story over my lifetime — I will refer to the machine at Baker as a zamboni.

I'm sure you're all curious how I got the opportunity to drive this machine so let me tell you. I was watching women's hockey's 6-3 dismantling of Harvard at home earlier this year when the thought of writing about the zamboni first entered my head. Weeks later I remembered my idea and pursued it.

On that glorious Friday night I went to Baker for the men's hockey team's game against Rensselaer — a 5-1 loss by the way. After the second period, I snuck down the ramp near the ice and through an open door. I found myself in the control room for the rink. There were huge gas tanks and a giant cooling system in front of me. I stood on the ramp that the zamboni uses to get onto the ice and waited as Don cleaned the surface. When he finished, and Matt and Paul put the goals back into place, I sprang into action made my request: "Please let me write an article about driving the zamboni."

Somehow they listened and after the game and most of the stands had emptied, I got my chance.

The next obvious question that I get is, "What was it like?"

That's an easy one: nerve-wracking. I don't know about you but I've never driven a $60,000 vehicle on a pure sheet of ice before.

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It was a good thing that I received plenty of instructions before hand.

"Put the key in, turn the ignition, and hit the gas," Matt said as I climbed into the drivers seat.

Let me give you some idea of what this machine is like. It has a Chevy 4.8-liter V-8 engine and 120 horsepower. It has automatic transmission, full-time four-wheel drive, and power steering. The machine has a top speed of 20 miles per hour, and it can go 0-20 in just about three seconds. It also has black wall snow tires that have tungsten-tipped studs for extra traction — very useful on the ice. Oh yeah, it also weighs 6,330 pounds when its empty and 7,900 pounds when it's full of water.

After a bit of goading I put it into drive and eased off the brake. I inched forward and finally began to give it a little gas, very little gas. I dropped the conditioner, which is the large unit on the back of the machine. This contains an 84-inch blade that shaves a very thin layer off the ice. There is then a vacuum system to clean up the shavings. I then turned on the water to make the new ice. The water that is dropped comes out at 200 degrees.

I stayed as far away from the boards as I could and tried my best to follow the lines that I had already made. Since I wasn't going very fast I felt like there was some wobbling of the machine.

The hardest part of driving is making sure that you keep it straight and that you don't miss any spots. This is especially difficult because in one direction you are forced to look all the way over the machine to try and spot your previous line.

With my first lesson complete I can't wait for the next one. The perks of driving the zamboni go beyond financial compensation.

First, you have amazing stories to tell. Conti told one about a student at Penn who stole the zamboni from Penn's 1923 Rink. The student was later pulled over by police on Market Street in Philadelphia and arrested for DWI. When asked about the reliability of the source he responded, "good enough."

Second, and more important, you have the respect of every fan in attendance — even I had an audience of about 25 viewers. This is not to say that they're always pleasant.

"When [students] used to fill the rink there was some pressure to not mess up because the students would let you have it; the boos would fall on you bad," Conti said.

Whatever ridicule the students might inflict is quickly forgotten, however, because in the end the zamboni is "a real chick magnet," Pfau said.