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Took you a while to notice! They only work in Firefox though. Columns are a function being added to CSS3 when it’s officially released, but Firefox has added them as a specific function for their browser in the mean time.
"rookie#19":ij712k2t wrote:Hey i dont think these special surfaces are the best idea, I fully agree with kyle!!Put a good sportscourt surface down and play inline hockey![/quote:ij712k2t]
Why Sportcourt instead of Ice Court? AFAIK Ice Courts are becoming popular than Sport Courts these days due to the lower friction which seems more suitable for ice training since the ice puck should slide over it okay.
The rink in Palmerston North is not a Sport Court apparently but home built gerry rigged surface, both Sport Court and Ice Court are better – or atleast that’s what I’ve heard from some of the guys on the NZ team.
The Palmerston North type surface may be a much cheaper alternative though. Any idea how big each of those tiles they used are? $6 seems quite cheap.
Ryan,
"Kyle":1c946vn5 wrote:Why not just paint the concrete up there and save yourself $9,900?[/quote:1c946vn5]Coz painted concrete is too grippy for ice pucks, they’ll flip and roll something wicked. I think a better option than painting the surface would be to polish the concrete, that would be much more slippy than a painted surface, I’m not sure how much that could cost but probably cheaper than my Ice Court idea.
"Kyle":1c946vn5 wrote:Use an inline surface and pucks.[/quote:1c946vn5]Well an Ice Court is an inline surface and inline pucks aren’t the best model for an ice puck.
"Kyle":1c946vn5 wrote:For shooting there’s almost no difference at all. The goalies might have to use different pads to avoid their ice pads getting munted, but they might have to do that for the plastic court surface a’how.[/quote:1c946vn5]Nope, ice pads should be no problem on an Ice Court, but they would be on concrete or a painted surface. Polished concrete would be marginal I think, but some duct taping over important areas would probably be good enough to prevent any damage.
Ryan,
Okay, some bad news and confirmation of what Stefan and Kyle suggested:
http://groups.google.co.nz/group/rec.sp … eb906370d9
http://groups.google.co.nz/group/rec.sp … b360c319a8I found these courtesy of Clive Murphie of the Aardwolfs Ice Hockey Club in Christchurch – thanks Clive <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="
” title=”Smiley” /> There’s also a bunch more older comments in Google groups if you go looking.Basically the gist is that your skates will blunten mega quick, plus it’s slow (unsurprising) and hard to skate on. There are also issues with getting plastic filings and oil stuck to you when you fall over.
Perhaps a better option may be to have an ice court surface (special roller arena floor) which would allow for using ice pucks and would cost significantly less but couldn’t be skated on with ice skates – it could be used with ice skates (skate guards on) but not for actually skating. That way the area could still be used for drills including passing etc. and would be ideally suited for practising with roller hockey skates. For those who don’t know, Ice Courts are an extremely low friction surface which allows the puck to glide over it very quickly but still gives plenty of grip unlike the synthetic ice surfaces. The cost of an ice court (AFAIK) is something like $50,000 for a full sized rink, so an 80m2 rink would cost around ~$2300 in theory (plus walls etc.).
Some info. about Ice courts are available here:
http://icecourt.com/icecourtexxess/technical_info.html
I’ve talked extensively to players who have used these rinks in the past and they’re quite popular, not a gimmick or anything despite some of the strange advertising on their site.Ryan,
FYI, I’ve sent an email to an acquaintance of mine in Canada (not Jenel) who runs a large hockey school. I asked for any contacts with facilities/people who have experience installing/using synthetic ice surfaces. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some more reliable information this way rather than relying on companies advertising information which seems to claim that their system is the greatest gift to mankind and is even better than real ice (which I assume is a load of bollocks).
I did a quick and extremely crude measurement of the area behind the grandstands tonight. The space available for a rink is ~16x5m with no space to spare. That gives a total area of 80m2 which based on my crude cost estimates above would cost ~NZ$10,000. This would give a suitable area for basic shooing practise, but also room to jam a bunch of people on there for doing passing drills or whatever other things could be practised on a small rink. In particular, drills could be run which would involve actually skating with a puck, turning etc. which wouldn’t be possible with a simple shot zone.
The more I think about this the more I like the idea, there’s a whole fleet of drills which are possible and would allow players to spend far longer practicing basic skills than is possible with the use of a full ice rink.
The theoretical cost of NZ$10,000 I’ve got above is a very rough estimate, but seems achievable, maybe not this year but definitely in the future. The cost of walls etc. would of course be on top of that. I’ll keep doing some more research and see what information I can dredge up.
As an interim solution, the original plan which Phil had of a simple shot zone with no synthetic ice surface could be used with inline skates instead of ice skates for drills, although this isn’t optimal for an ice hockey practise area.
Ryan,
Nup, they apparently get better the more they’re used! Some of the companies guarantee them to last atleast 10 years with heavy use. A slippery spray is applied monthly which keeps the friction to a minimum. I guess if it isn’t applied regularly then the surface may wear out faster but I’m not sure. I’ll be in touch with Jenel Bode in a week or so, she has some experience with these things and hopefully will be able to fill me in on some of the details.
There’s a whole bunch of different surface types available and I have no idea which is best, hopefully I’ll be able to get some contacts with people who have installed them/used them heavily and can pass on their experiences.
The surfaces don’t cause any significant wear on your skate blades AFAIK. Just like skating on a hard plastic chopping board smeared with lube.
Any interesting decisions made during the meeting? I wasn’t able to attend as I was busy being a tour guide for Jenel Bode.
Ryan,
Occasionally, although it depends how much time I have.
The annoying thing is that once they’re deleted, the IPs they’ve posted from are also deleted.I do need to ban their IPs as well though, perhaps if everyone posts their IPs here after you delete them would be handy so I can ban those IPs.
I think most of the spammers are using different IPs each time though.
Ryan,
Is it possible to get more time on Sunday incase there’s a nice big influx of players into the B-grade? So four games on Sunday, one on Tuesday for a total of 10 teams? It’s probably not likely, but you never know how much luck you might get come registration time.
eg a schedule something like this:
[list:t8w6sqd3][*:t8w6sqd3]beginners practise 4:00pm Sunday[/*:m:t8w6sqd3]
[*:t8w6sqd3]b-grade game 1 5:15pm Sunday[/*:m:t8w6sqd3]
[*:t8w6sqd3]b-grade game 2 6:30pm Sunday[/*:m:t8w6sqd3]
[*:t8w6sqd3]b-grade game 3 7:45pm Sunday[/*:m:t8w6sqd3]
[*:t8w6sqd3]b-grade game 4 9:00pm Sunday[/*:m:t8w6sqd3]
[*:t8w6sqd3]b-grade game 5 whenever Tuesday[/*:m:t8w6sqd3][/list:u:t8w6sqd3]A little optimistic I know, but knowing it’s possible in advance might be handy so you know you can blast past the 8 team limit without having to worry about lack of ice time.
[i:t8w6sqd3]Edit:Fixed the list code – Chris.[/i:t8w6sqd3]
"Kyle":18n5um1d wrote:given that we accept 12 year olds to play, that’s just too late.[/quote:18n5um1d]10:30pm seems fairly reasonable by NZ standards, ChCh play till midnight often and in North America 1am is fairly normal. The 12 year olds don’t need to play, there’s enough numbers without them anyway.
Of course, if it can be arranged that we don’t need to play till 10:30pm then that’s great <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="
” title=”Smiley” /> But thought I’d put my two cents worth in anyway.Ryan,
"leftrightconfused":pb3luzwu wrote:Its not the people playing hockey that will damage the rink, its vandals that will.[/quote:pb3luzwu]Vandals? What could they do? Do spectators try to vandalise the current rink? Presumably all spectators would need to access the inline hockey rink via the ice rink so noone could get in or out without being seen by the rink management/employees and anyone just going along to vandalise stuff would surely be caught by those who were playing at the time. Or maybe I’m just too trusting of those pesky spectators <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/tongue.gif" alt="
” title=”Tongue” />As far as someone to help organise an inline hockey rink goes, I’m not too keen on taking on something of that magnitude, particularly since I’m not likely to be in Dunedin in a few years time to appreciate it! But yeah, I agree with Graham on that, a person to drive this project forward is definitely the most important piece in the puzzle – [b:pb3luzwu]GO KYLE[/b:pb3luzwu] <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="
” title=”Smiley” />Ryan,
Electricity/lighting … more complications!
I hadn’t thought about that. I’m guessing the lights would cost atleast a thousand, maybe more. Some clear plastic walls/fencing would cut down on lighting costs a bit, but you’d still need decent lighting for in the evenings.
Does anybody have a rough idea of the cost to light up a facility like that? Plus associated running costs (electricity bills, maintenance etc.).
"Paul Roth":25f3ut3y wrote:The concrete base should be in the vicinity of $50,000.[/quote:25f3ut3y]Yikes, that’s quite expensive.
Perhaps plastic tiles tacked on top of the existing asphalt may be a better option then – although there would likely still need to be a some work done to level out the asphalt as there’s plenty of dips and bumps beside the rink.Although I’d like a nice fancy purpose built world class roller arena, I don’t see it happening so I quite like Pauls idea of a ‘cheap’ option.
Does anyone have a rough idea of how much it would cost to tack up a crude tarp ala Cook style? With or without a retractable option? Although retractable would definitely be a nice option as I’m sure a lot of people would quite like to play under the sun on occasion.
I’m no building expert, but I would assume that the supports required to hold up a tarp would be considerably smaller, lighter and cheaper than the type of supports required to hold up a proper roof.
Ryan,
I’ve deleted one which was claiming to be having issues with being logged out automatically. It looked perfectly legit, but there were two links in their signature to dodgy looking addresses.
Ryan,
Hi,
I’m in a backpackers in Melbourne at the mo, it’s about 30 degrees and there’s no ice in site! I’ve been wheeling my way round town on my inline skates and am really liking the idea of an inline hockey rink.I like Pauls idea of a very basic rink with a ‘Cook’ style pull over tarpauline type thingy and a basic fence to keep the hooligans out. Realistically a whole building is probably out of the question, the Christchurch rink couldn’t sustain itself with a whole fleet of clubs so building a full rink in Dunedin with absolutely no player base isn’t really justified IMO – although it would be very nice <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="
” title=”Smiley” />I remember Daniel Jang (Dunedin Aces founder) looked into the cost of an inline hockey rink surface a few years ago and it was about $50,000 for a sport court type surface or around $15,000 to polish some concrete.
For those who don’t know, the following are the main types of inline hockey court surfaces used:
(1) Sport Court/Ice Court – brand name court surfaces made from small clip together plastic tiles, these are considered the ultimate surface and are fairly expensive, they generally last 2-4 years before they need to be replaced, although I suspect if you’re not picky about the quality you could use them for a lot longer. Cost is ~$50,000 for a 60x30m rink (full-size).
(2) Polished concrete – like the name says, just a piece of concrete which is rubbed and buffed until it’s marble smooth – slippery as hell but fairly cheap, these rinks are usually not that popular but they do the job. This is the type of rink used in Blenheim. Cost for polishing/grinding concrete smooth was estimate a few years ago by Daniel Jang at ~$10,000-$15,000 for a full sized (60x30m rink). Remember we’d need the concrete base as well though – I have no idea how much that would cost, probably quite a bit I imagine.
(3) Epoxy painted – a special epoxy based paint (usually pale blue) is applied to a smooth (not necessarily polished) concrete surface, this is the most common type of surface used in New Zealand and is fairly economical apparently (I don’t have any accurate numbers on it though). This is the type of surface used in Nelson, the old Christhchurch rink and the new New Plymouth rink which hosted the Oceania games a while back. Epoxy surfaces are nice and grippy and generally popular with players.
(4) Wooden – too expensive, wear out, not weather resistant and usually only used when you have an existing floor to use. Not recommended.
(5) Asphalt – er, don’t even bother. Dangerous, slippery as heck and will wreck your gear, might as well go play on a tennis court. Plus the puck will flip and roll something chronic and generally drive everyone nuts. Very hard to skate on.
(6) Kiwi style gerry rigged sport court <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="” title=”Smiley” /> The rink in Palmerston North uses a home built sport court style plastic tiles surface, it’s a bit cheaper than a real sport court ($35,000 or so I think), but not particularly good. It’s likely that we could do a better job than them though as they can probably tell us what they did wrong in their design.
(7) Roll-on court – a hard, grippy surface which you roll onto whatever surface you want and stick it down like you would vinyl in your kitchen – I don’t know much about these and AFAIK they aren’t very common.Boards for inline hockey are also generally cheaper than for ice hockey. Since there is no full-checking allowed in inline hockey the boards do not need to be as impact resilient as ice hockey boards and due to them not being in constant contact with ice and extremely high humidity they generally aren’t affected by the elements so much – however if we had an outdoor rink by the current ice rink then the salty sea air could cause a few issues I imagine. I’m not sure what the official NZIHA regulations for inline hockey boards are but I think that they can be made from wood, which I suspect would be considerably cheaper than the plastic ice hockey style boards used in the Dunedin Ice stadium.
NZIHA regulations require inline hockey rinks to be between 60-30m and 40-20m. 40-20m is definitely on the small side of things but beggers can’t be choosers and I’d personally be happy with a rink that size, although I suspect Kyle will beg to differ <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/smiley.gif" alt="
” title=”Smiley” />So in a nutshell, the absolute minimum required for a ‘reasonable ‘rink would be:
(1) make a 40x20m concrete surface
(2) polish or paint the concrete with epoxy inline rink paint
(3) stick up some budget wire fences and add a tarpauline type roof on
(4) install some boards, preferably just some home built wooden ones.Ryan,
