In Minnesota, the switch to electric vehicles includes your local Zamboni

The newest addition to the Minnesota Wild lineup took laps around the ice at an empty Xcel Energy Center on Monday morning, prepping for an NHL debut at the season opener Thursday.

The newcomer is more than six feet tall, built like a truck, with a name familiar to hockey fans: Zamboni.

Like its predecessors, this Zamboni leaves it all on the ice under pressure from 18,000 raucous fans.

But it’s also different than its propane forefathers, which the Wild sold to a rink in Alexandria as part of a swap to get younger and more versatile. The rookie is electric.

That’s key for the team’s corporate sustainability goals and the change is meant to yield benefits for the environment and the ice itself. It’s also a quintessentially Minnesotan sign of the march of the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels, not just in cars and electric generating plants, but in appliances, engines and vehicles of all shapes and sizes, including “ice resurfacers.”

Many local rinks are ahead of the Wild on electrifying the fleet. Yet Zamboni fuel is only one of many environmental and energy issues the hockey community here is confronting, from high electric bills to harmful coolant chemicals.

The future of ice resurfacing also briefly drew controversy last year at the state Capitol when a few DFL lawmakers tried to ban the sale of propane machines.

Minnesota Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Wild, bought a pair of California-made electric Zambonis that arrived two weeks ago. It’s keeping around one of its three propane machines for “grunt” work, like changing logos, that benefits from a little extra power, said Travis Larson, ice operations senior manager.

The electric Zambonis are quite similar. They’re quieter, but not silent. A recognizable hum comes from rotating augers, not the engine. Larson said the team added a new water application technology that freezes faster and creates a denser sheet of ice that is better for skaters.

The Wild replaces Zambonis every 10 years, so when the milestone came up, it made sense to go electric, Larson said. Only a handful of NHL teams have electric ice resurfacing machines, he said, including the Seattle Kraken and the Montreal Canadiens.

But more rinks in Minnesota use electric machines than not, said Erik Halverson, president of the Minnesota Ice Arena Managers Association. The shift began decades ago, he said, especially at indoor rinks.

Climate is not the main reason. Rink managers would rather avoid extensive air quality checks and ventilation required by the state for propane machines, Halverson said.

The National Sports Center’s Super Rink in Blaine has six electric Zambonis and two propane ones, said ice arena operations director Pete Carlson.

Electricity is cheaper than propane, Carlson said, and skipping the extra ventilation work has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars at his busy rink. The Wild also went electric at its practice rink in 2018, Larson said.

Frank Zamboni, the machine’s inventor, brought his first two electric machines to the 1960 Winter Olympics, said Paula Coony, brand director for the company. Yet it wasn’t until Zamboni introduced a more capable lead-acid model in 1990 that rinks started to gradually embrace electric, she said. Now, the batteries are mostly lithium ion.

“I can’t even think of a fuel machine I’ve sold into Minnesota since I’ve been around,” said Logan Wescott, a Zamboni regional sales manager.

In 2023, DFL state Rep. Jerry Newton of Coon Rapids tried to outlaw that possibility altogether. He said he was motivated in part by decades-old cases in which hundreds of people were exposed to dangerous exhaust fumes in a Coon Rapids rink.

Newton said he backed off when a Zamboni family executive called him to say propane machines were on the way out anyway.

The bill was the target of some jokes about only-in-Minnesota legislation. The topic even came up during a Senate floor debate when GOP lawmakers lamented new gun restrictions.

“Today it’s your guns,” said Sen. Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids. “Tomorrow it’s your Zamboni, or your gas stove, or whatever is decided to be the demon of the day.”

Ice resurfacing machines aren’t the only environmental question facing rinks in Minnesota. Ramsey County’s 11 ice arenas account for about 85% of parks and recreation energy use.

The county is considering spending $6.2 million to outfit arenas with LED lighting and rooftop solar panels, among other energy improvements, said Mark McCabe, who oversees the rinks.

The county is facing an even bigger job to switch nearly all of its rinks to ammonia as a refrigerant instead of R-22, which is no longer being manufactured in the U.S. and depletes the Earth’s ozone. That would cost roughly $2.5 million for each of the smaller rinks and $5.5 million for the bigger ones.

“Ice arenas are just energy hogs in general,” Halverson said. “We’re basically a giant refrigerator or freezer.”

The Wild on Monday also touted a new ammonia system installed last year, which the team says is more efficient. Green tubes carrying glycol to chill the rink floor snaked around the plant room beneath the stands at the X, next to large white pipes labeled “ammonia.”

The ammonia plant has run smoothly, but Larson said there is still some “nervousness” ahead of puck drop Thursday for the electric Zambonis, despite test runs during preseason games.

“My staff, they still got some tuning in to do,” Larson said.