Google marks Frank Zamboni's 112th birthday with a playable ice resurfacing doodle

New Delhi: With the view to mark the 112th birthday of Frank Zamboni, Google has posted an interactive doodle on its homepage. The playable doodle allows you clean and smooth the surface of an ice rink. The doodle lets users play and score, which can be shared on their Google Plus account.

The game is very slow and is nowhere close to other interactive doodles that Google had posted in the past.

Frank Zamboni developed the first ice resurfacer in 1949 in the city of Paramount, California. Zamboni is said to be an internationally registered trademark, and the term is often used as a generic expression for any ice resurfacer.

The game is very slow and is nowhere close to other interactive doodles that Google had posted in the past.

Born on January 16, 1901, in Eureka, Utah, Frank Zamboni moved with his parents to the harbour district of Los Angeles in 1920. Frank attended a trade school in Chicago, and later he along with his younger brother Lawrence opened an electrical supply business in 1922 in Los Angeles.

In 1927, he and Lawrence added an ice-making plant and entered the block ice business. They continued their ice business in 1939 but saw little future in that business with the advent of electrically operated refrigeration units. They later decided to use their excess refrigeration equipment to open an ice rink nearby.

In 1940, they opened the Iceland rink, which proved very popular, in no small part because Frank had devised a way to eliminate rippling caused by the pipes that were laid down to keep the rink frozen. And in 1949, he designed an ice resurfacer that transformed the job of resurfacing an ice rink from a three-man, 90-minute task to a one-man, 10-minute job.

Frank died of lung cancer in 1988 at the age of 87.

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