What Values Do The Best Hockey Dasher Boards Provide?
Hockey is an incredibly physical sport. A hockey puck can travel up to 100 miles per hour, and players fly on the ice, often colliding with other players or the glass.
The safety of players and spectators is of paramount importance. The barrier that separates the rink and the spectator consists of the dasher boards and the rink shielding systems.
Of the two, the dasher boards make up the bottom part of that barrier and absorb the most punishment compared to any other part of the rink. So, it is vital that you don’t cut corners, but rather ensure that you choose the best hockey dasher board material for your venue needs.
Choosing the right hockey rink boards requires a great deal of planning and an evaluation of the activities that your venue will be hosting. You have to consider the following:
- The type of hockey played in your arena
- If other ice sports will be played
- If you want dry floors for events as well
- The seating arrangement of the spectators
- Your expected turnaround time for games
- The maintenance requirements of your facility
These questions and factors all have to be taken into consideration to select the proper board design for your venue as they will affect what type of dasher board you’ll need, how portable the rink shielding system will be, its shield height, and the overall layout of the arena.
Dasher Board Materials
Most modern facilities have replaced the old steel/wood combination and the all wood dasher board for the metal framed systems.
Hockey rink dasher boards make up the bottom part of the metal framed rink enclosures and are now made using high-density polyethylene (HDPE), while the rink shielding that extends above the dasher boards for increased protection consists of either acrylic or tempered glass.
With all the considerations you’ll need to make in choosing the right rink shielding system, it can become a daunting task. This is why you need to select a provider such as Athletica.
We are the global industry leader in developing technology that focuses on player safety, on reducing the risk and liability of owners and hockey rink operators, and on simplifying arena operations to maximize the spectator’s experience. Athletica dasher boards follow our proprietary Crystaplex® 6A System.
The Crystaplex® 6A system is a high-quality dasher board system that meets the standards of the National Hockey League, while at the same time incorporating more safety features than any other system available in the market today.
We offer features such as the SoftCap® caprail system, which can absorb 96% more force than standard HDPE cap systems; Seamless Acrylic Shielding System – a one-of-a-kind, impact-absorbing design that uses industry-leading Crystaplex® 590 Plus acrylic and provides ease of conversion, ultimate player safety and exceptional sightlines for spectators; and GlassFlex®, CheckFlex® and InFlex™ which allow the shielding, board system and dasher board facing to flex respectively, causing less strain to players who hit the divider. These features make the Crystaplex® 6A system a cut above the competition.
Doing your research and finding the right type of dasher board system to use in your venue or arena is your primary responsibility.
But why spend all that time when you can place your trust in a company that does all that research for you and applies it to their products! After all, you can’t go wrong with a company that has expertise installing dasher board systems for NHL buildings, right?
Athletica is a leader in the design, engineering, innovation, and manufacture of dasher board systems for all levels of hockey, from backyards to the pro’s. They also supply a full range of specialty products and services for sports facilities of all kinds.
