Now commercially available, the new dasher board design is the first product that was designed in a unique collaboration among the Pittsburgh Penguins, Covestro (a global material science company), and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) called "Rethink the Rink." This
annual Make-a-thon project
uses the technology innovation of CMU and its students combined with the high-tech material science expertise of Covestro engineers, and the game winning insight of the Pittsburgh Penguins, to advance the safety of the game of hockey.
In its first year, the Make-a-thon at Carnegie Mellon focused on rink dasher board design. Dasher boards surround hockey rinks and are used as a boundary; by players playing pucks off the boards in making passes; and checking other players into the boards to separate them from the puck. Hockey is the only major sport with a fixed board boundary so while playing hockey, pucks and players are making frequent contact with the boards, both with high speed and intensity.
Current board design has very little, if any, "give" when a player comes in contact with them. Most rink board design has steel framed elements, flush against a white High-Density Polyethylene board. Some older rinks still actually use steel framed wooden boards.
The winning student team's concept has increased flexibility and movement with a new facing material, comprising Covestro's Makrolon® polycarbonate sheeting over a nominal aluminum 6" frame that was modified to allow a polyurethane foam dampening element between new aluminum framing and the boards. This polyurethane foam was made with Covestro raw materials. The combination of sheeting, materials and framing allows the boards to flex when hit with mass but remain stiff when hit by pucks.
In other words, instead of hitting a solid steel framed wall, the newly designed boards absorb and disperse a portion of the impact when skated into by a player, but remain stiff when a puck makes contact.
"Make-a-thon and the new hockey rink dasher board application is a testament to how we can combine material science and leading minds to problem solve. It is a great example of how innovation and collaboration come to life," said Haakan Jonsson, Chairman and President of Covestro LLC. "This is a win for the collaborative venture between the Pens, Covestro, Athletica Sport Systems and CMU. And we expect more safety improvements to come from future Make-a-thons."
The concept was prototyped and tested by dasher board manufacturer Athletica Sport Systems using an automotive standard. Testing on the system showed significant increase in absorption on impact. The new dasher board prototype also showed up to 65% improvement in some of the key metrics of injury criterion such as acceleration and force. In comparison to the traditional steel frame design under the same impact characteristics there is a 150%-450% increase in deflection, which leads to energy absorption within the board system. This is a significant improvement and facilitates distribution of the impact velocity by 40-50 milliseconds.
"With Safety through Innovation being our brand promise and as a Preferred Rink Equipment Supplier to the NHL, the AHL, and USA Hockey, we were very interested to be involved in this endeavor," said Andrew McRae, CEO of Athletica Sports Systems. "Our greatest differentiator is our ability to innovate and listen to our customers, so we made the necessary changes to the original Rethink the Rink concepts to ensure the boards could be properly manufactured. It is rewarding to see the new, safer board in action."
Sections of the new board system were installed at the Covestro Innovation Rink at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex for use by amateur players and testing will continue to ensure consistency.
David Morehouse, President and CEO of the Penguins, said, "This is a tremendous achievement that will make the game safer. It is very exciting how Covestro, students from CMU, Athletica, and the Pens came together to create a dasher board that has a hard exterior so that the puck behaves the same way, but also has enough give to reduce injury when a person hits the boards during play. It is literally a game changer in making the game safer."
