The Zamboni ice-resurfacing machine isn't getting any love in the land of its ancestors.
It's the end of the first period at the Palasport Olympic arena in Turin last Saturday, the Italian men's ice hockey team is leading Germany 1-0, and two Zambonis are cleaning the ice, and few of the 8 900 fans are paying attention to the invention of Frank Zamboni, whose mother was born 30km away.
In North America, hockey lovers cheer the boxy Zamboni as it comes onto the ice to smooth the gashes left by 20 minutes of skating and body checking. Fans win Zamboni rides during games, and the machines appear in adverts for Budweiser and MasterCard.
"I've seen that they are a big deal in North America, but here, no," says Alessandro Tancredi, an export manager in Turin, sporting a wig in the Italian team's blue and white. "Here they just clean the ice.
"We Italians have passion for other machines, and they tend to be red," he adds, referring to Ferrari's Formula One race cars.
Sixteen Zambonis, all made at the Frank J Zamboni factory in California, are cleaning the ice at the winter games in Turin. The family-owned firm has smoothed the ice at every Olympics since Squaw Valley, California, in 1960.
Zamboni remains synonymous with ice resurfacing, even as it faces competition from companies such as Canada's Resurfice, the owner of the Olympia brand, and Italian firm Willy Mulser.
Zambonis appeared in 50 Peanuts comic strips, beginning in 1980. In the Peanuts film She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, Charlie says: "There are three things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice," as his dog Snoopy drives one of the machines around a rink.
Since December MasterCard has been running an ad in Canada that shows a man leaving a rink after losing a game. As he tallies up the cost of playing the sport, he sees a Zamboni go by and the voice-over intones: "Realising you still have a future in hockey: priceless."
Canadian ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, in Turin as executive director of Canada's Olympic ice hockey team, rode a Zamboni in a 2000 advert for Budweiser, while McDonald's distributes toy Zamboni machines at restaurants in Canada.
"It's big and powerful and friendly, like a cartoon character," says Pierre McGuire, the lead National Hockey League (NHL) commentator on TSN, Canada's most-watched sport network.
In Europe, even countries with more developed ice hockey cultures than Italy don't get the Zamboni cult.
"This is a very American question," says Mats Olsson, the media officer for 1994 gold medal winners Sweden.
"We are very different people and we don't accord any high status to these machines. I don't know anyone who cares who cleans the ice."
At the end of the second period in Turin, Italy and Germany are tied 1-1. Sasha Manni, who maintains the local ice rink in Lugano, Switzerland, turns on his Zamboni and sweeps out onto the ice. The crowd persists with chants of "Italia, Italia" and "Deutschland, Deutschland".
"Yeah, I hear the drivers get cheered in the NHL, but not in Europe," says Manni.
So much for a celebrated homecoming. Francesco Giuseppe Zamboni emigrated to America in 1885 from Arsio, a town in northeast Italy that was then under Austrian control.
He later married Carmelina Masoero, who came from Avigliana, 30km west of Turin. Frank Joseph Zamboni was born in 1902 in Eureka, Utah. In 1922, he and younger brother Lawrence moved to southern California, where older brother George repaired cars.
They produced ice for local dairies until refrigerated trucks put them out of business. In 1940, they used their ice expertise to open Iceland Skating Rink, then one of the largest ice rinks in America. It's still open, with its original organ.
At the time, it took four workers an hour to resurface the ice. To save time and cut costs, Frank tinkered with tractors and surplus army jeeps and in 1949 produced a prototype self-propelled ice cleaner, which he patented.
The Zamboni company has since delivered 8 000 machines.
While the motor has progressed from petrol to propane to electric, the principle of a Zamboni hasn't changed much. A blade scrapes the ice, and the shavings are scooped into the truck. Behind the blade, water is poured onto the ice, the excess is vacuumed up, and a towel smoothes it so it freezes.
The machines are assembled by hand in Paramount and in Brantford, Canada, and sell for $65 000 (R390 000) to $90 000. The Paramount plant, set amid strip malls, employs 30 to 40 people depending on demand. The machines are test-driven on the city streets.
Frank died in 1988, passing the company to his son, Richard Zamboni, who is now preparing to make way for his son, Francis.
Back in Turin, the match ends in a 3-3 draw. Italy's goalie, Jason Muzzatti, born in Montreal, says he'll do his best to spread the Zamboni cult when he returns to Bolzano in Italy's A league.
"Zamboni was almost the first word out of my son's mouth," Muzzatti says. "He prefers intermission to the game." - Bloomberg