The Beer Leaguer

Beer League to Pro League with Beers on Ice

• The Beer Leaguer • Season 2 • Episode 22

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Mike Steiner of Beers on Ice stops by to share progress on "Road to the Pros" and some new things to keep an eye out for.  Before that, we get into skate sharpening, rink temperatures, beers in the locker room, behind the scenes of beer league social media, and a lot more, we even give our Stanley Cup picks. 

This episode had some technical difficulties during recording, which led to some "interesting" moments, some of which are at the end, so make sure you stick around. 

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Music by RomaRecord1973 via Pixabay

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

And back by popular demand on this episode of The Beer Leaguer Podcast, we have Mike Steiner from Beers on Ice. Hey folks. Normally when I record the shows with somebody else, there's a little pre-show preamble. We talk about, you know, what we're gonna talk about on the episode, if there's specific topics we want to cover, something like that. But this time with me and Mike, we just kind of jumped right into hockey talk. So I just hit record and let it go. So you are kind of just dropping in on us mid conversation. Enjoy. Okay. So I know it's the closer you get to one inch is the, you get that on that sliding scale. One in less grip, more glide,

BEERS_ON_ICE:

less grip, more so. So let's just say for math saints, nine tenths is less super dull or

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

It's super glidey.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Well,

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

they're going

BEERS_ON_ICE:

to be sharp, but you would glide bore.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Right. Because usually the way it goes is younger kids get further away from one inch. Okay. because they need more grip, because

BEERS_ON_ICE:

they're small. Because they don't weigh very much.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Right. So as adults and stuff, as you get bigger, you go closer to one inch.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Right.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Because you don't like, and like, that was a big thing for me is, before I had the Sparks even, I was always getting whatever they had at the store. You know, it

BEERS_ON_ICE:

was like a half inch. Yeah, I think those half inch was universal for

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

everybody. That used to be for everybody. And I remember talking to Gagne over at Barron's, and I was like, should I try a different, They like, I don't know, does it make a difference? And he's like, yeah, you're, you're a good size, dude. You don't need, let's get you on something else. And, um, he put me on a three quarters, three quarters. Okay. And I was like, okay. And I didn't know if it'd make any difference. And it made a pretty big difference for me.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Yeah.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

One game, like at the end of the game, like I didn't really notice it skating, but the end of the game, my legs weren't nearly as tired.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Well, that's good.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Like I felt like I could have gone harder. I was like, Oh, I could have skated more and gone harder than I normally do. Okay.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

But also doesn't it, doesn't the ice quality affect what, how sharp or let's, we're not talking about sharp or dull or how wide.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Yeah.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

So see like now you really got to mix the two of them together

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

well you get into just getting it for your for yourself what you like and kind of Where that ballpark is like for me? I'm in I usually do my for myself. I I'm right now doing like 11 16th 11 16th

BEERS_ON_ICE:

okay, yeah, so alright, so let's see 11 16 so 8 16th would be half and So, you are getting closer to one, so it's going to be a little bit more glide. Okay. Got it.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Yeah. And I've done three quarters and I like that. At some point, I'll probably try a one, actually. Okay. Just to see what that is. And that's just for me, that's me generally on every ice surface. Now, if you really want to get into it, that's looking at your ice quality. Okay. Let's get into it. it's are you having hard ice or soft ice because then that also determines how much you know grip or glide you want for your skates depending on the ice

BEERS_ON_ICE:

right

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

and i mean i would say nhl guys it kind of doesn't matter because it's they have the best ice, but it does matter, because I nerd out about hockey equipment like this, and a lot of these guys will adjust their hollow per game up to an eighth of an inch from their normal, just depending on what rink they're at, because they know certain rinks have slightly softer

BEERS_ON_ICE:

ice or slightly harder ice. Like Florida, Tampa, I've heard there's historically bad ice, and then Calgary, Edmonton, it's super hard.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Right. So then guys will adjust according to that ice from what they have,

BEERS_ON_ICE:

what they

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

prefer. And so, and then you also have getting in now, they have that a fast ice system.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Okay. If you

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

know about fast ice. Oh, what is that? So the fast ice system is it's used throughout the, not throughout the NHL. Most NHL teams I think are using it now and a lot of other places are using it. And it's basically a, um, using like deionized and dechlorinated and super purified water that goes through the system to give you, and like, cause you, you know, when you're making ice, you want to get rid of all the air bubbles.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

We're talking about what's going into the ice on the ice. That's a weird

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

way

BEERS_ON_ICE:

to say it.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Making the ice. So yeah, it's fast ice, and it's this whole system that the water goes through to get to, like, Zambonia, if they're now

BEERS_ON_ICE:

going

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

down the ice for the first time.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Right.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Yeah, completely as purified water as you can possibly get, and they have some kind of system that also pulls out any kind of micro-bubbles that could be in there. Okay. Because

BEERS_ON_ICE:

I'm sure that, yeah, it's sure that factors into the melting points of these things and the freezing points.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Yeah, it does. It makes a huge difference. And then also that lets them set an optimal temperature for the ice for it. Because one of the things that starts to happen is when they get like some of these impurities in the ice or in the water, then the ice, it can show up in the rink. Like I'm sure you've seen between, especially NHL games, guys are out with the little laser thermometer. random spots. Oh yeah. And they do that. I mean, they also have monitoring systems where they have like the screen that has, you know, like 60 points of data under the ice that shows it, but it shows them like there's certain hot spots.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Yeah.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

From things. And then they might have to adjust the water, the temperature of the water to go out to try and even that out.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Wow.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

And the fast ice is, the idea is to help also eliminate that. So it's a lot more.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Universal. For everything. Yeah.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

That's cool. And so guys don't have to adjust their, their hollows as much when they're skating.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Yeah, when I was in college at Hobart, we had notoriously the coldest rink and some of the best ice in college. The nickname of the ice rink was called the cooler. And there were games there in February in upstate New York. It was freezing. And like during practices throughout the year, there was guys that were putting like Vaseline on their faces and wearing, you know, face protection because of how cold it was at night. It was amazing. We had such an advantage. I think it was my sophomore year, Manhattanville College came into town with number one team in the nation and then we just absolutely stomped them because they did not want to play in the cold and they're used to the New York City ice and it was obviously the rink was much warmer and they just did not want to be there. So also has a big advantage if you're not used to it.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Well it's yeah so it's just from a skating perspective it Sounds like minor differences. And like for me, it's a minor difference. Like I don't, I barely notice the ice being different in the rinks that, you know, I play at. I do a little bit, like now in the summer, if I play at different places, I definitely notice because some places don't handle summer well, but in the middle of winter, I don't really notice a lot. But it also is the building, this whole thing with the building temperature. Like, I don't know if you've, if you ever played like down at, uh, at the Q at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. It's hot in there, man. It is hot. It's hot. And even though they keep the ice, you know, good, it,

BEERS_ON_ICE:

it's a different, we did a beer league, um, uh, beer league, all-star game at rocket mortgage probably about five years ago. It was the first time I got there. It was awesome. We had a great time.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

My League does that just about every year now, an all-star game up there. And that's always everybody's comment when they get in. Oh

BEERS_ON_ICE:

yeah, so hot. And then nowadays, it's a crapshoot whenever you go to any of these rinks now in Cleveland. Winterhurst has pretty good ice. They just redid one of their sheets. So it's a little choppy right now Cleveland Heights one way. Yeah Heights 2025 champions, by the way Thank you, thank you would that place has really good ice as well. Yeah And I don't know. I just got an actual talking about ice rinks. I just got a text today Strongsville is up for sale And I kept talking about building a roller hockey rink, but we're definitely not buying Strongsville ice rink and turning it into a roller hockey rink. That is not the scale of what we're starting with. I got a text about that today. I was like, cool idea. I'm not going to buy a rink that has two ice sheets and going to turn it into two roller hockey sheets that we don't even have the demand right now for a full one roller hockey rink. Year round, let's do two, not going to happen. But I love the enthusiasm from guys that are going to do some roller hockey in Cleveland.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

I mean, you could do what a lot of places do and you buy it and then shut down, you know, one pad for the summer and have that beef a roller.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Right. That's what I came back with, and I was like, you know what, if two ice rinks at Strongsville's not profitable, well, who knows why they want to sell it. I was just assuming that it's not as profitable as they would like it to be. But if two ice rinks aren't profitable, put one down, put a roller hockey one on the other side. the amount of money that you have to pay to cool the place, for the refrigerator, the maintenance of it, the Zamboni. It's far less expensive to have a roller hockey rink on the other side. And you could be, that's a perfect location. It's a central location for East and West siders to get to, to do roller hockey. So I said, well, if we find out whoever buys it, we could throw out the idea of doing the roller hockey rink on the other side.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Oh, no, you need to buy it.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

No, that's a project I'm not willing to take on right now.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

You need to buy it because my league is looking for other rinks to play at. So you can buy it and then we can we can play our winter ice in Strongsville.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

So you're once a week, we got one sheet for two hours

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

set. The whole league is looking, so we'll take up as much ice as you need.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

All right. I guess we got, uh, how many games a week do you guys play? Two?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Well, no, I mean, it's an entire league, dude. We have like 45 teams now, I think.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't realize how big like hockey or is that hockey North? What is that called? HNN

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

America. Yeah.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Hockey North America is, I didn't realize how big that is in Cleveland.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Like we're actually, we just, we got an email yesterday. We're outgrowing the rinks. Like, cause we generally teams play like once a week. That's about that. And they're like, Hey, listen, we have getting to be too many teams. There's not enough ice. We're either going to have to start playing on Fridays and Saturdays or teams are going to start playing once every like week and a half and the season is going to extend another

BEERS_ON_ICE:

month or

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

so or something.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

If you had, what is your ideal? We are actually just talking about this. What is your ideal time and day to do beer league hockey? If you could choose selfishly for yourself, what night and day or what night or what day time, or what would you personally choose? Without any regards for anybody else, just Solo, what was your most ideal time?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Just for me, I really like a Sunday, but like a Sunday at like 8,030. Okay. A.M. or P.M.? P.M., P.M.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Yeah. P.M. And

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

it's not, it's late enough that, you know, it's in the evening, you can still, you still did whatever you did during Sunday, and that's not taking over your

BEERS_ON_ICE:

day.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Yeah. But it's not so late that, you know, when you're done, it's not that late out. You know, you can still kind

BEERS_ON_ICE:

of hang

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

out or whatever.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

That is true. You guys are notorious for going out to the bars afterwards. You guys don't miss one, right?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Not usually. Although we have a new thing that we started doing over the summer is we found out that Domino's will deliver to a pin point on a map. So instead of going out, we just had Domino's delivering pizza to the

BEERS_ON_ICE:

park. Deliver? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I gotta remember that.

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

It was great.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Pinpoint. That can get really greasy if you're ordering dominoes to pinpoint locations in the United States of America. That could get really bad. But yeah. I don't know how safe that would be for the dominoes drivers. But it was

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

great. So yeah, we just had the last couple of games you know, we're just all in the parking lot. We still had the beers

BEERS_ON_ICE:

that

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

we had in from the rink and somebody, the guy just ordered like as we were kind of wrapping up in the locker room, he just ordered the pizza and. It was the same driver every time too, which was great.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Really?

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

Yeah, same

BEERS_ON_ICE:

guy. That just makes me think, how much money, I don't know how much money, but a lot of rinks in Cleveland, no one really has a bar inside the rink. Most rinks, I think there's just maybe one or two rinks in Cleveland that have an actual bar, I guess. Is it actually kosher for the rest of the United States and probably Canada? It's probably not cool to bring beer into the locker room, right? You're not supposed to do that. I would assume not. And I just recently found out about that and I thought of all the times that I just had my hockey bag and literally carrying a case of beer into the public. and I'm just like

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

I guess like accepted thing in most of these places, but no, you're, I think every rink you're really not, either they don't have a liquor license, so you're not supposed to have anything, or they're like a public, you know, city rink, which is not supposed to have anything,

BEERS_ON_ICE:

or there's

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

a rink that does have a bar, then they don't want you bringing in outside drinks because they have a bar. And that covers like every rink. You're really not supposed to, but yeah.

BEERS_ON_ICE:

Yeah, it's part of the culture of the league. It's literally, it's beer league. You're supposed to have beer. One

THE_BEER_LEAGUER:

of the things that I always thought was a missed opportunity, kind of everywhere, is there's this

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