Puck

Background

Hockey pucks are flat, solid, black disk-shaped objects made of vulcanized rubber. Regulation National Hockey League (NHL) pucks are black, 3 in (7.6 cm) in diameter, 1 in (2.54 cm) thick, and weighing 5.5-6 oz (154-168 g). The edge has a series of "diamonds," slightly raised bumps or grooves. The diamonds give a taped hockey stick something to grip when the puck is shot. The blue pucks used in junior hockey are sometimes only 4 oz (143 g).

During a game, each team keeps a supply of pucks in a freezer at all times. When a professional hockey team receives their supply of pucks for a season, they are rotated so that the older pucks are used first. During games, pucks are kept frozen in an icepacked cooler, which usually sits on the officials' bench. All pucks are frozen to reduce the amount of bounce.

Though no one knows exactly how the hockey puck got its name, many believe that it was named for the character in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream. Like the impish flighty Puck, the hockey disk moves very quickly, sometimes in unexpected directions.

History

Played in Europe for several hundred years, field hockey is a predecessor of ice hockey, which sprang up in Great Britain during the 1820s. The game blossomed in the British protectorate of Canada in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Canada where long, cold winters are a certainty, ice hockey soon became the national game. Hockey also became popular in the northern parts of the United States during the same time period.

At first, amateurs dominated hockey and the rules were ever changing. The first professional league was organized in 1904 and called the International Hockey League. It only lasted three years. In 1917, the National Hockey League (NHL) was created, and is still the top level of professional hockey played in North America today. With the establishment of the NHL came codified rules and regularization of the game. Today, hockey is played by all ages, both men and women, throughout North America and many parts of the world.

In the early years, c. 1860-1870s, a rubber ball was the object used in hockey. Because the ball bounced too much, a block of wood was sometimes used instead. The modern hockey puck was invented around 1875. There are two different versions of its origination. One story claims that in 1875, students at Boston University sliced a rubber ball in half to make a puck. Another version places the evolution in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The owner of one of the first indoor ice rinks, Victoria Rink, also allegedly sliced a rubber ball in half. In any case, the first recorded use of a flat disk was in Montreal in March 1875.

Early pucks were made by gluing two pieces of rubber together (sometimes from recycled tires). Because of this construction, the pucks could split when they hit the goal post. During the 1931-1932 season, a puck with beveled (sloped) edges was used. By midseason, complaints by players and teams led to the return of the original puck. Though there was no official NHL puck until the 1990-1991 season, the basic construction from the early 1900s remained the same.

The FoxTrax puck

During the 1995-1996 NHL season, a slightly different puck was introduced. While the outside of the puck remained the same, the inside and effect was totally different. That year, the Fox television network obtained the rights to air the NHL All-Star Game and the Stanley Cup playoffs. Fox believed that to attract new viewers to the game, the network had to make the smalllooking puck easier to follow on television. To that end, they developed an enhanced puck called the FoxTrax puck. It contained a computer board and battery at its center and 20-pin holes all over the puck (12 on the edges, four on top, and four on the bottom) that guided infrared emitters, each beeping approximately 30 pulses per minute. These emitters communicated with 16 sensoring devices placed around the rink to follow the puck's movement. The sensoring devices were linked by fiber optics to computers outside in the "Puck Truck."

When processed by computer, the FoxTrax puck had a completely different look to the television audience. It had a translucent blue halo, which was supposed to make the puck more visible on a small screen. When a player shot the puck at speeds exceeding 50 mph (80 kph), a red tail appeared on television. If the puck reached speeds over 75 mph (120 kph), the tail was green. When put into play, each FoxTrax was remotely activated by a wireless controller. Unlike standard pucks, which were used until they went into the stands or otherwise damaged, FoxTrax pucks could only be used for about 10 minutes before the battery ran out. While Fox-Trax pucks weigh about the same as NHL regulation pucks, they cost much more to make. Each puck had a value of about $400.

From its first use, players complained that the FoxTrax puck did not move the same way a normal puck did. The FoxTrax puck also did not hold the cold as well. FoxTrax pucks became bouncy much more quickly than their regulation counterparts. When the Fox network declined to renew its contract to air the NHL All-Star Game and play-offs after the 1998-1999 season, the FoxTrax puck was no longer used or manufactured.

Raw Materials

A hockey puck is made of vulcanized rubber. The top and bottom of some pucks are decorated with team and/or league logos. These logos are silk-screened on to the rubber. The silkscreen process uses a rubber-based ink and four-color processing.

In addition to the rubber and silk-screened ink, the FoxTrax puck included several computer components—a lithium battery; 20 infrared emitters; a ceramic oscillator; an accelerometer; CMOS logic and switching; a four-layer, silver-dollar sized circuit board; surface mount parts; and a flexible epoxy to pot the board.

Design

The design of NHL regulation pucks was regularized in 1940 by Art Ross. Though pucks remained basically the same, Ross's innovation was a puck that was easy to manufacture and acted with some consistency when used in play.

Logos that are silk-screened on the puck are designed by the various professional hockey leagues (including the NHL) and individual teams.

The Manufacturing Process

Currently, hockey pucks are only made in four countries: Canada, Russia, China, and the Czech Republic. There are two kinds of manufacturing processes for pucks. One is for practice and souvenir pucks. The other is for regulation NHL and other professional league pucks that are used in games.

Practice/souvenir pucks

1. Rubber arrives at the factory in the form of cord packed into 40 ft (361.9 m) long tubes. The cord is fed by hand through a pultrusion machine.
2. A worker monitors as an automated, timed machine pulls the rubber and slices long pieces of rubber 4-5 in (10-13 cm) thick.
3. The machine grabs 4 in (10 cm) of the rubber cord and drops it into a two-part (male-female) mold. The mold is heated. The two parts of the mold are compressed together. Approximately 10,000 pucks can be made in one day.
4. After the puck is made, they are silk-screened with a rubber-based ink. The pucks are fed into one of four kinds of silkscreen machines, depending on the number of colors included in the team or league's logo. (There is a hand silkscreen machine, as well as three-color, six-color, and eight-color silk-screening machines.) The logo is placed on the puck.
5. The pucks are packed for shipping in cases of 100. Wax paper is placed between rows to separate the pucks so that the logos are not marred.

Regulation NHL pucks

1. Granular rubber is mixed with special bonding material by hand.
2. The mixture is put in a two part (male-female) mold. A molding pallet of 200 mold cavities is filled by hand. The mold is cold compressed. (This procedure actually takes place at room temperature.) About 5,000 pucks can made per week.
3. In a separate procedure, the pucks are silk-screened with a rubber-based ink. The pucks are fed into one of four kinds of silkscreen machines, depending on the number of colors included in a team or league's logo. (There is a hand silk-screen machine, as well as three-color, six-color, and eight-color silk-screening machines.) The logo is placed on the puck.
4. The pucks are packed for shipping in cases of 100. Wax paper is placed between rows to separate the pucks so that the logos are not marred.

FoxTrax pucks

1. The pucks are manufactured in the same way as regulation pucks.
2. The pucks are cut in half by hand.
3. The center of the puck is carved out by hand. Sometimes this was done with a routing bit and a routing machine.
4. A drill with a special drill bit carves the 20-pin holes that are the paths for the infrared emitters. This is done by hand.
5. The computer board, driver circuits, battery, and other high tech parts are placed inside the puck by hand. The board is potted with an epoxy that is flexible by hand. The epoxy is made from materials similar to the puck. The puck is glued back together with a mixture of flexible epoxy and filler.
6. The puck is silk-screened. The pucks are fed into one of four kinds of silkscreen machines, depending on the number of colors included in the team or league's logo. (There is a machine designed for silk-screening by hand, as well as three-color, six-color, and eight-color silk-screening machines.) The logo is placed on the puck.
7. The pucks are packaged for shipment. Wax paper is placed between rows to separate the pucks so that the logos are not marred.

Blue (junior hockey) pucks

1. Rubber and blue-colored plastics, both in a granular state, are mixed with special bonding material. This is done by hand.
2. The mixture is put in a two part (male-female) mold. A molding pallet of 200 mold cavities is filled by hand. The mold is cold compressed. (This procedure actually takes place at room temperature.) About 5,000 pucks can made per week.
3. In a separate procedure, the pucks are silk-screened with a rubber-based ink. The pucks are fed into one of four kinds of silkscreen machines, depending on the number of colors included in a team or league's logo. The pucks are fed into one of four kinds of silkscreen machines, depending on the number of colors included in the team or league's logo. (There is a hand silkscreen machine, as well as three-color, six-color, and eight-color silk-screening machines.) The logo is placed on the puck.
4. The pucks are packed for shipping in cases of 100. Wax paper is placed between rows to separate the pucks so that the logos are not marred.

Quality Control

Pucks are checked for the regulation size and weight. If regulation pucks do not meet prescribed standards, they are recycled and the rubber is reused to make pucks. After regulation pucks are made, certain specimens are frozen for 10 days, then bounced. The tester ensures that the pucks bounce the same ways as those in previous batches. A consistent product is important in the production of pucks. Every puck must act the same way on the ice.

During the silk-screen process, the ink can be affected by the moisture in the air, dust particles, and hair. The pucks are checked for the effect of any of these qualities. Any effected pucks are washed with paint thinner and go through the silk-screening process again.

In the past, Russian-made pucks sometimes had metal fragments in them. These pucks were rejected for use by North American markets. Pucks with air bubbles or softer rubber in the middle were rejected for similar reasons.

Byproducts/Waste

Any excess rubber from the manufacturing process is collected, re-shred, and used again to make pucks.

The Future

The future does not involve much change to the actual puck, its composition, or manufacture. While a blue-colored puck is currently made for junior hockey, pucks of different colors serve no purpose in the game and are not likely to be manufactured on a large scale. Any improvements to the silk-screen process would result in changes in the decoration of pucks. Plated souvenir pucks might be available in the future.

Where to Learn More

Books

Duplacey, James. Puck. In The Annotated Rules of Hockey. New York: Lyons & Burford, 1996, pp. 52-54.

Periodicals

Modoono, Bill. "Puck's History is Hardly the Stuff of Legends or Lore." Star-Tribune Newspaper of the Twin Cities Minneapolis-St. Paul (December 13, 1992): 3C.

Vizard. "Hockey's Chip Shot." Popular Mechanics (May 1996): 40.

—AnnettePetruso

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a vulcanized rubber disk 3 inches in diameter that is used instead of a ball in ice hockey
  Synonym: puck

This article's introduction section may not adequately summarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (October 2009)

Two standard hockey pucks

A puck is a disk used in various games serving the same functions as a ball does in ball games. The best-known use of pucks is in ice hockey, a major international sport.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 In ice hockey 2.1 Variations 2.1.1 Firepuck 2.2 In game play 2.3 Manufacture 3 In roller hockey 4 In underwater hockey 5 In other sports and games 6 In popular culture 7 References

Etymology

The origin of the word "puck" is obscure. Despite common belief,^[1] it is evidently not connected to Shakespeare's Puck or the mythical Puck. The Oxford English Dictionary^{[clarification needed]} suggests the name is related to the verb "to puck" (a cognate of "poke") used in the game of hurling for striking or pushing the ball, from the Scottish Gaelic puc or the Irish poc, meaning to poke, punch or deliver a blow:^[2][3]

PUCK, a blow. He gave him a puck of a stick on the head. More commonly applied to a punch or blow of the horns of a cow or goat! (Ask Little Britainers!) The cow gave him a puck (or pucked him) with her horns and knocked him down.

The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his caman or hurley (stick) is always called a puck.

Also, a free shot in hurling is a free puck.

Hockey puck bearing an early-style logo of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League.

It is possible that Halifax natives, many of whom were Irish and played hurley, may have introduced the word to Canada. The first known printed reference was in Montreal, in 1876, just a year after the first indoor game was played there.^{[citation needed]}

A hockey puck is also referred to colloquially^{[clarification needed]} as a "biscuit".

In ice hockey

Ice hockey requires a hard disk of vulcanized rubber. A standard ice hockey puck is black, 1 inch (25 mm) thick, 3 inches (76 mm) in diameter, and weighs between 5.5 and 6 ounces (160 and 170 g);^[1] some pucks are heavier or lighter than standard (see below). Pucks are often marked with silkscreened team or league logos on one or both faces.^[1]

The game evolved in Great Britain^[1] from bandy, which is a "ball and stick on ice" game played by field hockey players who wanted to continue to train during the European winters. Early forms of ice hockey, once known as "Canadian rules bandy", used a ball rather than a puck when it first came to North America from Europe. Early players found that the wooden ball used in field hockey was far too active on the hard ice surface, so they cut off the top and bottom of the ball to form the hockey puck.

It is conjectured^[who?] that the puck was first used in organized play to protect spectators from the highly active ball used previously. Today, pucks are frozen a few hours before the game to further reduce bouncing during play.^{[citation needed]}

Variations

There are several variations on the standard black, 6 oz (170 g) hockey puck. One of the most common is a blue, 4 oz (113 g) puck that is used for training younger players who are not yet able to use a standard puck. Heavier 10 oz (283 g) training pucks, typically reddish pink or reddish orange in colour, are also available for players looking to develop the strength of their shots or improve their stick handling skills. Players looking to increase wrist strength often practice with steel pucks that weigh 2 lb (900 g); these pucks are not used for shooting, as they could seriously harm other players. A hollow, light-weight fluorescent orange puck is available for road or floor hockey. Other variants, some with plastic ball bearings or glides, are available for use for road or roller hockey.

The FoxTrax "smart puck" was developed by the FOX television network when it held NHL broadcasting rights for the U.S. The puck had integrated electronics to track its position on screen; a blue streak traced the path of the puck across the ice. The streak would turn red if the puck was shot especially hard. This was an experiment in broadcasting intended to help viewers unfamiliar with hockey to better follow the game by making the puck more visible. It was ill-received by many traditional hockey fans, but appreciated by many of the more casual viewers. The system debuted with much publicity in the All Star game at the Boston Fleet Center on Jan 20, 1996. While this production had the highest ratings of any hockey game to date, the system was shelved when Fox Sports lost the NHL broadcast rights three years later.

Firepuck

The use of the Firepuck in the early 1990s was the first attempt to improve the visibility of hockey pucks as seen on television. This invention incorporated coloured retro reflective materials of either embedded lens elements or prismatic reflectors laminated into recesses on the flat surfaces and the vertical edge of a standard hockey puck. Yellow was the preferred reflected colour. A spotlight was required to be positioned on the TV camera and focused at the centre of the viewing area.

A short demonstration tape of the Minnesota North Stars skating with the Firepuck was shown during the period break at the 1993 National Hockey League All Star game in Montreal, Canada. The International Hockey League (IHL) pursued testing the Firepuck with its inventor, Donald Klassen. The next television viewing was the IHL All star game in Fort Wayne IN, Jan 1994, where the Firepuck was used the entire game. The IHL tested the Firepuck in two more games, and finally the East Coast Hockey League used it Jan 17, 1997 for their All Star game.

The use of the Firepuck was discontinued because:

• The slight structural change increased the tendency for the puck to bounce on the ice. This made it more difficult for the goaltender and resulted in increased scoring.
• The skaters objected to the use of camera spotlights which reflected off the ice.
• The television viewing contrast of the Firepuck was not noticeably enhanced when the camera view was of the entire rink, this being the most common camera shot.

The Firepuck name was branded during the 90s but has since been discontinued.

In game play

During a game, pucks can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) or more when struck,^[4] and are potentially dangerous to players and spectators. Puck-related injuries at hockey games are not uncommon. This led to the evolution of various types of protective gear for players, most notably the goaltender mask.

The most serious incident involving a spectator took place on Mar 18, 2002, when a thirteen year old girl, Brittanie Cecil, died two days after being struck on the head by a hockey puck deflected into the crowd at a National Hockey League game between the Calgary Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets in Columbus. This is the only known incident of this type to have occurred in the history of the league. Partly as a result of this tragedy, plexiglass panels sitting atop the boards of hockey rinks to protect spectators have been supplemented with mesh nets that extend above the upper edge of the plexiglass.

"Icing the puck" is shooting the puck from the defending players' half of the playing surface (their side of the centre red line) across the opposing teams goal line on either side of the goal, as a delaying tactic or a (sometimes desperate) defensive play intended to shift the momentum of play away from the offensive team. Except when the defending team is short-handed because of a penalty, it is a rule infraction that generally results in a stoppage of play to return the puck to the offending team's end of the ice for a faceoff. Since the resumption of play in the National Hockey League after the 2004–05 lockout, a team that has a player ice the puck also must keep the same players on the ice, for the ensuing faceoff, as were on the ice when the icing infraction happened.

During the 2005–06 season, a rule was implemented which penalizes any player intentionally or accidentally shooting the puck out of the rink from their team's defensive zone. The rule was intended to eliminate the contradictory nature of the previous version of the rule, which only applied to goaltenders.

Manufacture

NHL regulation pucks were not required for professional play until the 1990–91 season, but were standardized for consistent play and ease of manufacture half a century earlier, by Art Ross, in 1940.^[1] Major manufacturers of pucks exist only in Canada, Russia, the Czech Republic, the People's Republic of China,^[1] and Slovakia[1].^{[citation needed]}

The black rubber of the puck is made up of a mix of natural rubber, antioxidants, bonding materials and other chemicals to achieve a balance of hardness and resilience.^[5] This mixture is then turned in a machine with metal rollers, where workers add extra natural rubber, and ensure that the mixing is even. Samples are then put into a machine that analyzes if the rubber will harden at the right temperature. An automated apparatus, called a pultrusion machine,^[1] extrudes the rubber into long circular logs that are 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter and then cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick pieces while still soft. These pre-forms are then manually put into moulds that are the exact size of a finished puck.^[5] There are up to 200 mould cavities per moulding palette, capable of producing up to 5,000 pucks per week.^[1] The moulds are then compressed. This compression may be done cold^[1] or with the moulds heated to 300 °F (150 °C) for 18 minutes,^[5] depending on the proprietary methods of the manufacturer. They come out hard and then are allowed to sit for 24 hours. Each puck is manually cleaned with a trimmer machine to remove excess rubber. The molding process adds a diamond cross-hatch texture around the edge of the puck for more friction between the stick and puck for better control and puck handling.^[5]

The practice pucks are made by a similar but faster process that uses larger pre-forms, 4–5 in (10–13 cm) thick, puts them into molds automatically, and applies more pressure and heat over a shorter period of time to compress the puck into the standard size. This allows approximately twice as many pucks to be manufactured in the same time period as the more exacting production of NHL regulation pucks.^[1]

In roller hockey

Roller hockey pucks are similar to ice hockey pucks, but made from plastic and thus lighter. They have small ribs protruding from their tops and bottoms which limit contact with the surface, allowing better sliding motion and less friction.

Most commonly red, roller hockey pucks can be found in almost any colour, although light, visible colours such as red, orange, yellow, pink, and green are typical.

Roller hockey pucks were created so inline hockey and street hockey players could play with a puck instead of a ball on surfaces such as hardwood, concrete, and asphalt.

In underwater hockey

Underwater Hockey puck pushed by stick

An underwater hockey puck (originally but now rarely referred to as a "squid" in the United Kingdom), while similar in appearance to an ice hockey puck, differs in that it has a lead core weighing approximately 3 pounds (1.4 kg) within a teflon, plastic or rubber coating. This makes the puck dense enough to sink in a swimming pool, though it can be lofted during passes, while affording some protection to the pool tiles.

A smaller and lighter version of the standard puck exists for junior competition and is approximately 1 lb 12 oz (0.80–0.85 kg) and of similar construction to the standard puck.

While there are numerous regional variations in colour, construction and materials all must conform to international regulations stipulating overall dimensions and weight. The regulations state that pucks should be a bright distinctive colour, for example high-visibility pink or orange, and that for World Championships these are the only acceptable colours. The relevant regulations can be found within the Official Rules at www.thewaa.org

In other sports and games

The term "puck" is sometimes also applied to similar (though often smaller) gaming discs in other sports and games, including novuss, shuffleboard, table shuffleboard and air hockey.

In popular culture

Ice Hockey World Championships 2003 commemorative coin

• Ice hockey sticks and pucks have been used as a symbol and main motif in different commemorative coins. A recent sample was the Finnish Ice Hockey World Championships 2003 commemorative coin, minted in 2003, celebrating the event. On the reverse, three ice hockey sticks with a puck can be seen.

• The phrase "dumb as a hockey puck" is a common idiom.

• "What are you lookin' at, you hockey puck?!", became one of the stock insult phrases of comedian Don "Mr. Warmth" Rickles. Rickles voiced Mr. Potato Head in the movie Toy Story, and in an ironic twist, uses the phrase when speaking to a hockey puck character.

• The mouse-like pointing device used with some graphics tablets and with digitizer hardware for CAD or desktop publishing software is also called a puck, and "hockey puck" is a nickname for the small, round mouse included with the original Apple iMac.

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007)

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} "Hockey Puck: How Products are Made". eNotes. http://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/hockey-puck. Retrieved 2009-10-29. 
2. ^ Beauchamp, J. Clem (September, 1943). Montreal Star. , citing Joyce 1910.
3. ^ Joyce, P.W. (1910). English as We Speak It in Ireland. 
4. ^ "Mark Marncari breaks "Hardest Shot" record at AHL All-Star Skills Competition". The Hockey News. 2008-01-27. http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/13022-Mark-Marncari-breaks-Hardest-Shot-record-at-AHL-AllStar-Skills-Competition.html. Retrieved 2009-10-29. 
5. ^ ^{a b c d} "How it's made: Hockey Pucks". ScienceHack. http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/0xFbO4sQjPw. Retrieved 2009-10-29. 

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