EDMONTON, AB, Jan. 16, 2013/ Troy Media/ – Just as the 2012-2013 NHL Hockey season is finally getting under way, albeit months late, today marks what would have been the 112th birthday of Frank Zamboni Jr., the inventor and creator of the famous ice re-surfacer that bears his family’s name.

While we think of hockey as Canada’s game, the inventor of this incredible machine, used between periods at arenas everywhere and which we all want to ride on, was not from the Great White North. In fact, he was an Italian-American inventor from Eureka, Utah in the U.S. The birth of the Zamboni itself was in 1949, in a suburb of Los Angeles, California, now called Paramount. According to Wikipedia, there have been thousands of units sold, with the 10,000th unit – sold in April of 2012 – going to the home of the Habs – the Montreal Canadiens – to clean their ice at the Bell Centre.

To commemorate Zamboni’s birthday, Google has created yet another of its famous Doodles.

Doodles are basically spontaneous variations to the company’s logo used to celebrate or commemorate special events, milestones, birthdays and often the lives of famous people across a broad spectrum.

Often clever, funny and entertaining, they can take the form of images, drawings, animations and some are even interactive. Doodles first appeared in 1998 and different Doodles may appear on the Google homepage in different countries. For example, the 2013 New Years Day Doodle appeared globally, the 150th anniversary of the Tube appeared on Google’s UK homepage while recognition of Edith Piaf’s 95th birthday appeared on Google homepages in Switzerland, Austria, France and Germany only.

Frank Zamboni Jr.

The Zamboni commemorative Doodle for Jan 16, 2013, is a little interactive game with an almost Nintendo Super Mario Brothers look and feel, style and sound. Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, you navigate the Zamboni to clean and resurface the ice area. It’s fun and a little addictive. But be careful! If you take too long or neglect to minimize your path, you just might run out of gas. An odometer keeps track as to how much territory you have covered.

Take a few minutes or more today if you’d like to have fun with the Doodle. Simply visitGoogle.ca. If you missed any of the Doodles, you can find them, from all countries, going back to 1998 at the Google Doodle archive.

Greg Gazin is a Tech Columnist, Small Business and Technology Speaker and Senior Editor at Troy Media. He can be reached at Gadgetguy.CA on Twitter @gadgetgreg or you can find him on Empire Avenue at (e)GADGET1.

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