Hydraulic Pressed Puck

This photo, taken in 2015 and posted on The Weather Network's site, shows a broken puck. I've only seen a puck break in a hockey game inside an arena once, so having something like this happen usually requires some pretty special circumstances. I have seen, however, a puck shatter on an outdoor rink during a particularly cold day where the puck hit the crossbar flat and landed on the ice in two distinct pieces. Seeing this makes legends out of the players who shot the puck for a few days, so what is the moral of this story? Pucks are frozen for use in rinks during games, and it seems the vulcanized rubber loses its ability to absorb abuse when they freeze at colder, more extreme temperatures.

I posted a video of a hydraulic press crushing a puck to see what kind of force the puck can withstand, and that video showed that the puck can withstand some pressure, but had some rather scary results once the press really kicked in. Safety tip: don't crush a puck unless you know what you're doing, ok?

With that warning in mind, what would happen if one were to cryogenically-freeze a puck and then submit it to the abuse of the hydraulic press? This may seem elementary after the unofficial science in the first paragraph and the knowledge gained via the video link in the second paragraph, but let's humour the Hydraulic Press Channel with this experiment. Here is their video of the hydraulic press crushing a regular puck and a cryogenically-frozen puck. AGAIN, DO NOT TRY THIS ANYWHERE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!

2200 pounds of pressure is all it took to crush a cryogenically-frozen puck in an experiment that literally no one would have questioned had one just stated "cryogenically-frozen puck shatters under pressure". I guess it makes good viral video, but I don't think anyone would have second-guessed these results.

Science is cool, though. You can quote me on that.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!