THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090631
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TAMARA STANLEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
Nicks, scrapes, bumps, ice pebbles. Rough streaks and half-inch crevices can catch a skate and twist an ankle.
After a six-minute sweep by the Zamboni, the Scope ice is clear as glass, smooth and shiny. The Hampton Roads Admirals rush to the ice. Fans find their seats. Game time.
``Zamboni Man'' has done his job.
``I just love hockey,'' says Tom Pettitt, the man behind the machine, peering wide-eyed across the ice, arms crossed over his belly, feet squared.
Pettitt, 56, the chief caretaker of the ice, examines the surface like a pruner in a nursery. The streaks, dents and missed spots are worms in his garden.
``Yeah, I hate those streaks,'' says Pettitt. ``It just looks like you haven't done it right.''
He's a stickler for ``good ice.'' And you don't get ice that's smooth, ``like a mirror,'' he says, unless everything is just right. The 6-foot ice-shaving blade has to be razor-sharp. The conveyor has to shoot the snow quickly into the tank. The washing of the ice with cold water and the flooding with hot water have to be in perfect timing.
``When everything is working right, it's beautiful ice.''
Just before practice and the first period, and after first and second periods, Pettitt and the Zamboni hum around the rink.
He stands stout atop what looks like an ambitious tractor. Short fingers rapidly twirl but barely touch the wheel.
A few inches from the rink wall, Pettitt turns sharply. The Volkswagen motor buzzes not more than a foot from fans in box seats. One, two, three pumps of the lever release the water, and he turns.
``It's almost instinctual,'' said Dale McClure, an East Coast Hockey League official and former co-linesman of Pettitt's. ``He looks at the ice, it doesn't look right. Or he drives the Zamboni and the Zamboni doesn't feel right. He feels it through the seat of his pants, I think.''
You don't turn into Zamboni Man overnight.
``There's a lot of skill to it,'' Pettitt says. ``The hard part of the whole thing is the driving. An ordinary person just can't get in, jump on it and go.''
He admits that he sometimes misses a spot. Fans remind him of his duty.
``If the ice is rough, the puck is rough. I got this one old fella who comes a lot always tellin' me, `Make good ice for 'em tonight.' ''
Parents hold up their children to wave as he zips by.
``I try not to wave back when I'm close to the boards because that's where it gets dangerous.''
The Zamboni, moving no faster than 15 mph, can slide into and through the rink's boards, and injure fans or squeegeeing attendants. Studded tires and a careful driver prevent slipping.
Some ask for his autograph or hand him Zamboni-themed ``Peanuts'' comics. Most want a ride on the famed machine.
``I could probably sell tickets. Make some money.'' For insurance reasons, Pettitt has to say no.
Not everyone is as lucky as 2-year-old Alan Hudson, who on this night gets his picture taken on the parked Zamboni. He grasps a Tonka-sized replica in one hand and high-fives Pettitt with the other.
``Thank you very much,'' he delights.
``He's a very nice man, always taking the time do things for the kids,'' said Allison Hudson of Portsmouth.
Pettitt has a hard time figuring out why fans go nuts over the Zamboni.
``I wonder why people get so . . .'' he hesitates, ``fascinated. I'm a ham,'' he says, chuckling.
``I'm not out there strippin' or anything.''
A Gloucester County sheriff leading a road crew of inmates by day, he arrives at Scope around 3:30 in the afternoon of each Friday home game. He's missed only three in seven years.
Fellow deputies and inmates tease him about his weekend trips south.
``They call me the Zam Man,'' he laughs. ``Yeah.''
Pettitt taught himself to drive the Zamboni growing up in an ice rink in Kingston, Ontario.
``I was a rink rat. We would pull the flooders for the games. Our payment was after everyone left the rink we got to play hockey, till 4 in the morning most of the time.''
He progressed through amateur levels in Canada and officiated for the Western Hockey League when he didn't make the Long Island Ducks. When the league folded, he joined the Canadian correctional system as an officer.
He left Canada when the World Hockey League was established in 1974. When the Gulls came to Hampton, Pettitt was the team's trainer and equipment manager. He reunited with a former roommate from his Ducks-tryout days - John Brophy, now coach of the Admirals.
Pettitt returned to law enforcement after the Gulls disbanded in 1978. When the Admirals landed in Scope, they hired Pettitt to drive the Zamboni.
He's been the only Scope Zam Man ever since.
To Pettitt, it's just a job.
``Somebody's got to do it,'' he said. ``If it's not me, somebody else will.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, The Virginian-Pilot
"There's a lot of skill to it," Tom Pettitt says of his job as the
keeper of the ice for Hampton Roads Admirals games.
Powered by a Volkswagen motor that takes it to speeds of up to 15
mph, the Zamboni is used to rid the ice of nicks.
Photos by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, The Virginian-Pilot
``When everything is working right, it's beautiful ice,'' says Tom
Pettitt, the chief ice caretaker at Scope who is known to the fans
as ``Zamboni Man.''
Tom Pettitt, a Gloucester County sheriff leading a road crew of
inmates by day, arrives at Scope by mid-afternoon of each Friday
home game. He's missed only three in seven years.
by CNB