What is a Hockey Puck Made of?

The hockey puck is a 3-by-1 inch disc made out of vulcanized rubber. Hockey pucks are very hard and slide easily over the frozen surface of the ice that the sport is played on. They are kept frozen before a game so that they will not bounce so much on the ice.

  1. Goodyear

    • Before the process of vulcanization was accidentally stumbled upon by Charles Goodyear in December 1839, rubber would become very brittle and break when it became cold and soft when it got hot. Goodyear devoted much of his life to making rubber harder so that it could have many uses.

    Vulcanization

    • The process known as vulcanization begins with rubber heated to very high temperatures before different compounds, like sulfur, are added to it. Chemical reactions take place and the combined molecules bind to one another, with the result being vulcanized rubber, a form of rubber that is not only durable but smooth.

    NHL Quality

    • The pucks used in the NHL are made when granular rubber is vulcanized and then poured by hand into a mold before being compressed. Rubber-based ink is then utilized to put the NHL logo and that of different NHL teams on the puck.

    Inglasco

    • The Inglasco Corporation, which is based in Quebec, manufactures all of the pucks used by NHL teams. Another company from Canada, the Viceroy Reliable Group, is responsible for producing pucks used throughout Canada and the U.S.

    Specifications

    • NHL pucks need to weigh between 5 1/2 and 6 ounces. Pucks that fail to meet standards are recycled. The edge of a hockey puck has many tiny diamond-shaped grooves which are there so that a hockey stick can gain some traction when it hits the puck.