Hockey Puck

The black rubber of the puck is made up of a mix of natural rubber, antioxidants, bonding materials and other chemicals to achieve a balance of hardness and resilience.

This mixture is then turned in a machine with metal rollers, where workers add extra natural rubber, and ensure that the mixing is even. Samples are then put into a machine that analyses if the rubber will harden at the right temperature. An automated apparatus, called a pultrusion machine,

extrudes the rubber into long circular logs that are 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter and then cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) thick pieces while still soft. These pre-forms are then manually put into moulds that are the exact size of a finished puck.

There are up to 200 mould cavities per moulding palette, capable of producing up to 5,000 pucks per week.

The moulds are then compressed. This compression may be done cold

or with the moulds heated to 300 °F (149 °C) for 18 minutes,

depending on the proprietary methods of the manufacturer. They come out hard and then are allowed to sit for 24 hours. Each puck is manually cleaned with a trimmer machine to remove excess rubber. The moulding process adds a diamond cross-hatch texture around the edge of the puck for more friction between the stick and puck for better control and puck handling.