Penguins, Carnegie Mellon University, And Covestro Aim To Make Hockey Safer With New Dashers
By: KDKA-TV News Staff
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The Penguins, Carnegie Mellon University, and Covestro have teamed up to help make the game of ice hockey safer.
A collaborative effort between the three designed first-of-a-kind dasher boards that surround hockey rinks.
The dasher boards are built to compress with impact and absorb the force of a body check to help reduce injuries but still allowing the puck to bounce and slide off the boards.
The project was a collaboration that had been in the works for three years, beginning with the "Re-Think The Rink Make-A-Thon."
"There were a lot of us involved that said, 'Hey, Covestro has this material science expertise and we have the hockey expertise' and we can bring in the doctors, and we can bring in the players, and then we found the CMU angle," said Terry Kalna, the Penguins' Chief Revenue Officer. "We needed the brilliance that the students brought. This wide-eyed approach to 'we can make anything better than what we have today.'"
The boards are now available for purchase beginning this week and recreational ice rinks can install them to keep hockey players and skaters safer.
Meanwhile, the Penguins have already begun using these boards, as they're installed on their practice rink at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
