Grand Junction – Rows and rows of new skates sit ready on the rental shelves. Seventeen thousand square feet of ice is frozen solid. The Zamboni has made its rumbling passes and slicked that ice to a high sheen.
And Frank Zamboni, his grandchildren say, is likely smiling down on all this.
After more than a dozen years of thwarted efforts, five descendants of the man who invented the ice-leveling machine that bears his name stepped in to build The Glacier Ice Arena, which opens Saturday.
“It wasn’t going to happen otherwise. Some lenders fell through. Costs kept going up,” said Alan Koos of his family’s decision to build a $4.25 million rink on its own.
Grand Junction may not have come up with enough in donations for a nonprofit rink, but there was never a shortage of enthusiasm.
Five years ago, members of the Ice Skating Inc. fundraising group bought a used Zamboni machine in anticipation of a rink. The machine was paraded through town with a police escort as onlookers waved and cheered.
At a downtown dance studio, there is proof that rink zeal hasn’t melted. For the past several weeks, new skaters who can’t wait to hit the ice have been taking skating lessons in a wood-floored room.
“I’m really excited,” said Kim Turano, 15, as she waited for her lesson Thursday. “I don’t even remember how long I’ve been waiting for this.”
The Zamboni descendants said they also are excited to be carrying on a family tradition.
They grew up as “rink rats” in Paramount, Calif., where grandfather Frank Zamboni built his first ice rink in the 1940s.
Zamboni was an ice supplier until the advent of electrical refrigerators put a huge crimp in his business.
Once Zamboni had built a rink, he set to work on a device to keep the ice smooth.
That’s when his tinkering led to a machine that roughs up the surface, then uses hot water and a squeegee to put a slick finish on it.
Grandpa Zamboni went on to invent a machine that puts down and takes up AstroTurf in sports stadiums and a machine that lifts caskets into graves at cemeteries.
The Kooses are carrying on that innovative streak by building their ice rink with a heat-exchange system that, instead of venting the hot air generated in freezing the ice, uses it to heat the 36,642-square-foot Glacier building that will include a small gallery dedicated to Frank Zamboni.
The more than $750,000 donated to the nonprofit ice rink effort over the years is playing a part in the rink. Part of that money not held in a trust will be used to fund skating programs for underprivileged youths and to rent affordable hockey equipment to all players. An “honor wall” in the rink displays the long list of donors.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
