Hockey Pucks

By Eric Geier

Many people believe that hockey has and always will be a Canadian sport. However, early origins of the game are traced back to Great Britain, when field hockey players would take to the ice of frozen ponds during the winter to further hone their field hockey skills. The game was called “bandy,” to differentiate it from field hockey. The sport moved overseas to North America and took hold of the public in Canada due to their long winters and vast amounts of frozen ponds. It soon became apparent to Canadian bandy players that the field hockey ball had far too much movement on the ice, meaning it bounced too much and wasn’t as controllable as they wanted. To fix the movement problem, some innovative player cut the top and bottom portions of the ball off, creating flat ends that would glide smoothly across the ice, also allowing players to control, pass and shoot the ball faster and more efficiently. The origin of the word puck is not exactly known, but some believe that it derives from the Scottish word puc, meaning to poke or deliver a blow. Either way, this simple innovation changed the game forever.

It goes without saying, but the standard puck color is black, with a standard weight of six ounces. A puck is one inch thick, has a diameter of three inches and can reach speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour when shot by a professional hockey player. The puck can be extremely dangerous and can cause injury to anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time. One such incident happened in 2002 in Columbus, Ohio when a young girl was struck in the head by a deflected puck at a Columbus Blue Jackets game. Two days later the girl died from the injuries she sustained from the puck. Though this is the only known incident of someone getting killed by a puck, the NHL and all major hockey leagues decided to put up protective netting behind the goalie nets to prevent such an accident from happening again.

Hockey pucks are manufactured in a variety of countries around the world, mainly Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia. There are no puck-making facilities located in the United States. The puck is made out of natural rubber, with other chemicals added to bond the rubber together. To make a puck, shards of rubber and chemicals are put through heated rollers that bond all of the agents together. The rubber density and consistency is rigorously monitored so the puck meets all regulations.  The hot rubber is then fed through a machine similar to a sausage making machine that spits out logs of rubber, which are automatically cut into one inch thick pieces. These one inch thick pieces are then put into molds, similar to a baking sheet. After the pucks are placed in the mold, they are compressed under extreme heat to produce the final outline of the puck. The nearly complete pucks are placed in a machine that trims any excess rubber off. For the last step, the puck is stamped with a logo, maybe from a team or a league from a country. Finally, the pucks are ready to ship and be dropped at center ice.

Hockey pucks are pretty easy to come by if you’re a collector, since hockey is not as popular as other sports. There seems to be less demand to get autographs from hockey players even though NHL hockey teams seem to have more public autograph sessions than any other sport, which is a good thing for hockey fans. Hockey pucks are also nice to add to your collection if you are short on money, because they are less expensive than say autographed footballs or baseballs.

Did you mean, Blue Jakets or Blu Jackets?