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[FEB. 19,
2004]
Twenty-four years ago
in Lake Placid, N.Y., our American hockey team shocked the world.
First we defeated the Soviet Union in the early medal round, and
then we beat Finland to bring home the gold medal. It was the first
time an American hockey team ever won gold, and many of us remember
announcer Al Michaels proclaiming, "Do you believe in miracles?
Yes!"
The just-released movie about that 1980
Olympic team made me wonder how some hockey-related inventions were
created. Let's take a look at three of them.
Ice
skates
You'd probably think that ice skates
were invented by a Canadian. After all, that's where hockey
originated, right? And hockey is the national sport of Canada,
right?
I grew up playing "pond hockey" on our
farm -- we even used the Jeep to plow the snow off the pond one time
-- and then went on to play hockey at the University of Kentucky.
Many people think hockey in Kentucky makes about as much sense as a
Jamaican bobsled team.
The Dutch word for skate is "schenkel,"
which means "leg bone." A pair of primitive skates from around 3,000
B.C. was found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland. Believe it or
not, these skates were made from the leg bones of large animals,
with holes bored at each end of the bones. Leather straps were used
to tie the skates on.
During the 1300s, the Dutch developed
skates that were attached to shoes by means of leather straps, and
the skaters used poles to propel themselves forward. Around 1500, a
metal double-edged blade was added, which made the poles unnecessary
because
the skaters
could now push and glide with their feet.
A number of innovations have been made
to ice skates since then, such as attaching the blade directly to
the boots and adding toe picks (known as teeth). While figure skates
allow a skater to make the jumps that you see in competitions on TV,
the toothless hockey skates allow a skater to change direction
easier and to stop quicker.
Hockey may or may not have originated
in Canada. Just as in baseball, there are different versions of how
and where the game originated. Some believe that its roots go all
the way back to the 1500s in Europe, with the word "hockey" being
derived from the French word "hoquet," which means "bent stick."
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North American hockey originated in
Canada, and it may have evolved from a game called ice hurley in the
early 1800s in Nova Scotia. The first official hockey game was
played in 1886 on a rink that had a grandstand in the middle of the
ice. The "puck" was actually a lacrosse ball cut into the shape of a
square. After that came wooden pucks; today the pucks are made of
hard rubber.
In-line
skates
Like ice skates, inline skates also
have a Dutch origin that goes back several centuries. In the 1700s,
a Dutchman tried to simulate ice skating by nailing wooden spools to
strips of wood that he attached to the bottoms of his shoes.
In 1980, an NHL player named Scott
Olson bought an old pair of in-line skates at a sporting goods store
in Minnesota because he thought they would be a good training device
for hockey during the offseason. (No, they weren't the same Dutch
skates left over from the 1700s.)
Olson named his in-line skates
Rollerblades and later sold the rights to an established company.
The skates became a hot-selling item after they were introduced in
Southern California.
Zamboni
machine
Just as Rollerblades made their mark in
Southern California, so did the company that Frank Zambone founded
to build the machines that bear his name. Zamboni Machines®
cover the rink with a brand-new layer of ice between each period of
hockey games and during figure skating competitions.
Since the Zamboni factory is located
about a mile down the street from the ice rink where they test them,
local residents sometimes get to watch a Zamboni employee drive one
of these machines on the road. They have a top speed of 9 miles per
hour.
By the way,
hockey is not the national sport of Canada. Lacrosse is. And in case
you didn't know, there really is a Jamaican bobsled team. They
placed 14th at the 1994 Olympics, ahead
of the U.S. and Russian teams.
[Paul
Niemann]
Invention Mysteries is written each
week by Paul Niemann. He can be reached at
niemann7@inventionmysteries.com.
© Copyright
Paul Niemann 2004
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