zambonis + boston's winter
FIRST SNOW, BREAKFAST TABLE —
disclaimer: as you all may know, i took the last week off to potato and eat potatoes with family and friends. now i’m back, but i don’t have any new bylines to share…so i thought i’d share an an story of mine that i wrote two years ago. it has never been published before. this is a story about zambonis, boston winter, and hard work — tell me what you think about this format!
my words:
a greying ice rink in hingham, a manager with two tattoo sleeves and a “sicko sense of humor” and a dinky machine that scrapes ice are what convinced aaron ralph to finally apply to college.
he wasn’t inspired by business classes. or lectures in high school on retail. or slideshows on the importance of a degree.
instead the 19-year-old boy was motivated to get a higher education by his first part-time job which would end up becoming his dream job: driving a zamboni.
“it’s weird because I thought my first job would just give me some extra money,” ralph told me. “i didn’t realize it would become a dream for me to own a rink one day.”
ralph doesn’t look like someone made for rough and rigor of the rinks: he’s a tall skinny guy with blonde hair, with light eyes that stick out on his pale skin.
every morning, ralph leaves his home in whitman around noon and drives a half hour to braintree. he parks his car and then takes an hour t commute to government station.
once he gets off the T, he enters his seasonal gig: the boston winter ice skating rink in city hall. often times, ralph is greeted by scenes of cocoa-sipping couples hailing anywhere from new hampshire to europe, kids with pink mittens, and the hum of hey there delilah.
“honestly, most people don’t pay attention to me at the rink, they think it’s cool and just about that,” said ralph. “but it is a dream for some people, you know, to be up on a zamboni.”
once ralph settles in, he takes out two yellow gloves from his pocket, layers up with three sweatshirts and a parka, and as a true massachusetts native, never forgets his long johns.
“i’ve always been an outdoorsy person so [the weather is] never too bad,” he said, still calling right now “the worst time of the year to be at an outdoor rink.”
he says he would prefer to work closer to home, or move to one of the many indoor rinks near his house, but the pay is better over at boston winter.
plus, college isn’t cheap.
regardless of the weather, it seems that ralph on the ice is always a mishmash of rhythm and accuracy. a hop onto the main seat, no seatbelt. a pull of the lever here, a look on the leftward side of the machine. a sharp reverse. a quick forward motion. it’s a cross between robotic monotony and well worn talent. he’s yet to get into an accident.
the routine takes 4 minutes and 26 seconds if it’s a good day, but it’s usually closer to 6 minutes.
anyone watching ralph do his intricate routine at boston winter would never believe that he started out as a lanky 16-year-old who hopped on the back of his brother’s zamboni at their local rink: pilgrim skating arena.
“i never played hockey or spent time on the ice,” ralph said, saying it didn’t make sense for him to try for the job. but, ralph needed the money, his older brother zach knew the rink, and of course, the manager of pilgrim was a living legend: rob “robbie” taylor.
“And after meeting taylor, here I am, four years later,” ralph added.
taylor, 34, has a head of grey hair, two tattoo sleeves, a home in pembroke and not more than ten minutes of free time on any given day. he started working shifts at the rink, then owned by his father, when he was 16 - just like ralph.
“we’re a hands-on sort of place, i’m always on the ice for every program we offer, we don’t contract people, and it’s all in house,” said taylor on a phone call. “and that’s what makes the difference.
taylor trained ralph with the same hands on mentality, three years ago. taylor would use magic marker to mark the different wheels, levers and buttons of the zamboni with numbers to show the correct order to pull, press and lift.
this routine that would take a year for ralph to learn, and then a couple months to make second nature.
for three years, ralph’s training would begin at 11 p.m. on a weeknight once the rink had quieted down.
taylor would teach ralph how to treat ice, maintain a zamboni, and the importance of hard work and accountability.
taylor has often coached kids on the ice, either for hockey or for ice maintenance, for a large part of their lives. it’s not unusual for him to coach a kid as a toddler into their teens. a few of his students made it big, such as brian boyle of the new jersey devils.
ralph believes that taylor was a huge influence in the decision to go to college in 2018.
“in high school i had an ego that i didn’t need a degree to make a living, but if i want a position like taylor’s, then i need to get those degrees,” ralph said.
he added: “as much as i don’t want to think about it, the world revolves around that piece of paper.”
taylor, who himself didn’t go to college, agreed with ralph’s mentality, saying “you can only get so far if you don’t have a degree.”
ralph plans to apply to massasoit community college near his hometown in business management this summer.
The impact of pilgrim skating arena appears even in ralph’s casual conversation.
ralph can describe the setup of Pilgrim without batting an eye: kind of dirty, a lot of dogs, a pro-shop counter on the left, a snack counter on the right, and three rinks.
he will, however, stutter when he talks about leaving pilgrim for better pay.
“i miss the community of that rink,” ralph said. “everyone knew my name, kids high fived me. the rink itself was a sh*thole, but it didn’t stop people from coming out.”
while he misses the comfort and legacy of pilgrim, ralph has found a new connection at boston winter to inspire him, and keep him on track to go to college: his manager, frank ryan.
ryan picked up the zamboni when he was 16 - now, he’s 51 and a manager of the rink.
“when I miss the ice, I sometimes hop on the back of aaron’s zamboni and watch how it’s done, to remember when I used to drive,” Ryan said.
so what inspired ryan to stay on the ice for decades?
when ryan was 16 years old, he picked up a shift as a zamboni driver. It was at a dinghy rink in hingham with a strong sense of community, and a legacy of tough but fair family of coaches. it’s kind of dirty, has a lot of dogs, with a pro-shop counter on the left, a snack counter on the right, and three rinks.
it was the rink that made ryan take his first job and turn it into a dream job, and the rink that will make ralph try to do the same: pilgrim skating arena.
learning lesson: i wrote this story about two years ago for a features reporting class. it reminds me, to this day, about some of the best parts of being a journalist: telling stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told, finding common threads, and well, getting out of your comfort zone (quite literally, in this case).
etc: while editing this story for this week, i reached out to the main character of this story, aaron, via text to see if he ever ended up going to college (and of course, if he ended up still driving zambonis). it was the first time we’ve talked in two years.
he said he is still saving up money for college, and is driving a “little bit.” his efforts to be a manager one day, however, are in full swing. aaron is working with the company that built the rink where we met: boston winter. they do about 90 rinks a year across the country.
to stories like his,
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header by Adam Chang on Unsplash