from Zackharia DeBeaussaert of The Farm Club,

Zamboni is the common vernacular for the behemoth driving around on the ice. It’s actually an ice resurfacer. Commonly, tissues get called Kleenex, but Kleenex is a brand, not the actual object. It’s the same for Zamboni.

The Zamboni company has an internationally registered trademark that has vaulted them from a product producing company, to their own word in the dictionary. Since 1950 the Zamboni company has had a stranglehold on the ice resurfacing market, because lets face it “I wanna drive the ice resurfacer” doesn’t exactly carry the tune.

There’s a new company that’s coming in to challenge Zamboni’s dominance on the ice resurfacing market. In Grand Blanc, Mich. the machine known as the Icecat looks to be the new standard of ice surface maintenance all across the globe.

“Our tagline is ‘built like a sports car, shaves like a razor’ because of it’s premium features and aerodynamic design” said Tyler Moncreiff, Sales and Brand manager for Icecat North America. The Icecat is the product of UKKO a manufacturing company based in Finland. Moncreiff says that the move to sell in North America was to gain prominence in the biggest ice resurfacer market in the world.

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