On Saturday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested a man in his 30s who recklessly drove a Zamboni during a bantam class hockey match in Manitoba. The incident led to the immediate cancellation of the game.
According to Martin Kintscher, the team manager of the Seine River Snipers, the man entered the hockey rink while driving the Zamboni during the second break of the game. But, just as he was about to enter the rink, he crashed the machine onto the boards surrounding it, Fox News reported.
Instead of stopping, the man continued to drive around on the ice. As a result, the debris caught beneath the machine scrapped against the ice which created cracks and gaps that were big enough to make it unsafe for the young hockey players to skate on.
"On his first lap he struck the gate where the Zamboni drives onto the ice, and broke boards and also broke pieces off the actual Zamboni," Kintscher told CBC. "One piece got stuck under the Zamboni, which left a ridge on the ice with every lap."
Due to the damages on the rink, sports officials overseeing the game cancelled the match. However, upon hearing this, the man insisted that the match should still continue and said that the hockey players, aged 13 to 14 years old, can still skate on the ice. The man even got angry at Kintscher and other officials for reporting the incident to his supervisors and authorities.
A few moments later, the law enforcers arrived at the scene and arrested the man. According to authorities, they tried to give him a breathalyzer to determine if he was drunk but he refused. It's not clear if the man was really intoxicated or under the influence of illegal substances.
Kintscher, who had the chance to talk with the man before he was taken away by the RCMP, even said that he did not exhibit any sign of intoxication. Still, the man was charged with impaired driving and resisting arrest immediately after his apprehension, NY Daily News reported.
"We said maybe he is impaired, even though I spoke to him up close and couldn't smell any alcohol on him, couldn't see that his eyes were bloodshot or anything," Kintscher noted.
