Garden humour

Canadian Scientists Develop Hockey Puck Tree

Photo: Superior National Forest, Wikimedia Commons & pikpng.com

By Larry Hodgson

In the April 1st edition of Science News Monthly, scientists Mélissa Bordeleau and Alyssa Tanguay of Université Laval in Quebec announced the development of a genetically modified tree that can be used to produce hockey pucks. 

Using CRISPR technology, they were able to remove a cluster of three latex-producing genes from the rubber tree (Ficus elastica) and insert them into embryos of sugar maples (Acer saccharum). The resulting trees produce sticky white latex sap instead of the clear sugary sap of a normal sugar maple. When saplings reach from 6 to 7 years of age, their sap-filled trunk can be cut into puck-shaped slices, pressed, vulcanized and turned into perfect imitations of the traditional hard rubber hockey puck. 

This is actually a return to the original hockey puck which was, until the 1870s, made of slices of sugar maple trunks. However, wooden pucks tended to break apart after only a short use, unlike the long-lasting rubber pucks that came to replace them.

The Beaverton Busters gave their stamp of approval to the new puck. Photo: Anton Belitskiy, pexels.com.

The new sugar maple hockey pucks were tested this winter by various clubs, including the Beaverton Busters of Beaverton, Ontario, and found perfectly adequate. “They really slide over the ice like any other puck, maybe even faster,” noted the club’s mascot, Jake Imbroglio. “Our team loves them!”

This solves a long-time complication for the Canada-dominated sport of ice hockey, which has had to rely on pucks imported from Malaysia for over a century. Sugar maples are hardy trees and can be grown throughout much of Eastern Canada, and thus the new latex-bearing trees may over time bring the hockey puck industry back to its home country.

It may be possible to produce commercially viable rubber by tapping the GMO maple trees. Photo: Dave Pape, Wikimedia Commons

Further studies are underway to see whether the latex can be tapped from more mature GMO sugar maples, much in the way sap is now harvested for use in the production of maple syrup, possibly leading to a new rubber-producing industry adapted to cold temperate climates.

For more information on the new puck, consult the article “Canadian Hockey Puck Tree Launched on April Fool’s Day” in the April 1st edition of Science News Monthly.

Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

7 comments on “Canadian Scientists Develop Hockey Puck Tree

  1. Of course many of us remember the BBC documentary on the spaghetti tree.

  2. Pussy willow should get together with dogwood.

  3. Isabel Belanger

    My husband thinks it should be – true that is.

  4. Margaret

    Oh, Larry!

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