When Carter Stamkos, the absolutely adorable 2-year-old son of Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkoscracked up the entire media room at the 2022 NHL All-Star Game press conference Requesting over and over again to go see and/or drive the ZamboniI remember vividly thinking one thing: My kids would do the same thing.
Even if I were an accomplished NHL player, one with two Stanley Cup titles, spending the weekend in Las Vegas because even in my 14th season I was still good enough to be selected to the Atlantic Division All-Star Team where my children would get the A rare opportunity to meet and mingle with the best athletes on the planet, they’d probably rather just go see the giant machine with all the buttons that make a ton of noise.
Such is the life of a parent.
The good news for parents is, now you don’t have to make an NHL roster — or even leave your own house — to get your kids on a Zamboni.
Zamboni and the NHL have partnered with Kool Karz Playground for the first-ever, ride-on Zamboni toy. As the NHL.com employee with the youngest kids [four, 8-and-under] — and some days it feels like I have the most kids on the entire Eastern Seaboard — I was assigned to have a portion of them go for a test drive and write about it.
Video: Steven Stamkos‘son Carter gets his very own Zamboni
The toy is for ages 3-6 putting two of my boys right in the target audience. Jenna, the lone girl, is 8, Jake is 6, Luke is 3 and Christian is 1.
The ride-on toy has plenty of fun features — working headlights, USB and SD card ports, bluetooth speaker for tunes, storage compartment. [where they can keep whatever they want but in the case of my kids probably half-eaten crackers]. But the thing they liked most was the horn, replicated exactly after the one on a real Zamboni.
Jake said “I like this” after his first ride. And if you knew Jake you’d know that is pretty much the highest allowable praise he would ever give out. Free gigantic ice cream sundae or $50 million Powerball jackpot, “I like this” is pretty much what you are going to get from the kid.
Luke is still a little young to be interviewed, but he didn’t want to get off the toy for quite some time, so that’s telling. Jenna, who is way too tall for her age, actually fit on the Zamboni pretty comfortably. She went off-road on the grass and it still drove well. Later, she used to ride the concrete path to the mailbox and back to retrieve the various packages that pretty much never stop coming to our house.
The other big thing for parents to know: rechargeable battery. And not one of those weird, giant square removable batteries you have to remove from the toy to put on a charger that looks like it only fits into an outlet in Rome. This one goes right into the wall and right into the side of the Zamboni like charging a cell phone. Super easy.
All in all, solid toy, lots of fun. It kept them outside in the yard and off the devices pretty much until Luke’s bedtime. And that’s a win in my household.
As for Christian, once he masters the whole walking without falling down thing, he will get his chance to go for a ride.
.