HERCULITE Tempered Glass Kept The Hockey Action On The Ice

Before this product from Vitro Architectural Glass was first used in the Pittsburgh Hornets hockey rink, chicken wire kept players and fans in their respective zones.

Advancing through the professional hockey playoffs is truly a Herculean effort, as is keeping the puck and players on the ice. With the speed and physicality that mark the game and the upcoming 2019 Stanley Cup (begins May 27), it’s hard to imagine that dasher boards were once topped with a chicken wire mesh barrier to keep play on the ice.

While the mesh offered a mostly unobstructed view of the action on the ice, the openings between the wire also gave fans an opportunity to poke opposing players, or an official, with a hat pin if they lingered too close to the boards.

In 1940, a stronger barrier came into play when the Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh became the first hockey rink to use glass above the dasher boards —leveraging the shatter-resistance of HERCULITE® heat-tempered glass, the world’s first safety glass made locally by PPG Industries (now Vitro Architectural Glass).

Photos of the Pittsburgh Hornets, Duquesne Gardens’ home team, crashing into the glass were shown nationally, in newspapers, stating “the Herculite — four to five times stronger than heavy plate glass — can withstand the bone-crushing shock of the furious ice sport.”

Stanley Cup
Photo: PPG Industries

Though tempered glass no longer is used in hockey arenas, windows and doors made with Herculite glass remain the global standard for meeting safety glass mandates. Heat- and chemically strengthened to be lightweight, sturdy, and versatile Herculite glass is the industry’s oldest safety glass brand.

Vitro Glass has four technical documents (TDs) related to heat-strengthened and tempered glass, including:

  • TD-113 Why Annealed, Heat-Strengthened and Tempered Glass All Deflect the Same Amount: Discusses the stiffness of glass and the deflection characteristics of annealed, heat-strengthened and tempered glass
  • TD-115 Strain Pattern in Tempered and Heat-Strengthened Glass: Discusses visual strain patterns in tempered and heat-strengthened glass, and how and why they occur
  • TD-124 Fabrication of Heat-Treated Glass: Includes recommendations concerning further fabrication of heat-strengthened and tempered glass
  • TD-138 Heat-Treated Glass for Architectural Glazing: Discusses the appropriate use of heat-strengthened and tempered glass, including the occurrence of spontaneous breakage, and the use of heat-soaking of tempered glass; offers recommendations

To download these documents, or for more information about Herculite glass and other heat-treated glass by Vitro Glass, visit www.vitroglazings.com.