[jat850]

What's interesting is that several things can affect the sheet of ice and make sheets even within the same building behave differently. Often if sheets on the end of the building have an outside wall, you'll see the outside sheets behave different from the middle sheets of ice. The same thing can happen depending on how cold it is outside. It's grown more scientific in recent years, especially at the professional level.

Ice makers are indeed held to a challenging task and what you said is true - they're recognized across the club, on site, by basically every member and they more often get blame than praise for how the ice affects a game!

[chrismcb]

During one of the gold medal matches they were talking about how play is different because with only one game going on there were fewer people (aka heaters) in the building