The game of Ice Bocce played with Slydysk

IDAHO FALLS — It’s like the game of Bocce that can be played on grass in the backyard, but this one is done on ice.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, in Bocce you start by throwing a jack several feet and try to get your pieces as close to the jack as possible.

Now a local ice sports enthusiast has come up with a similar concept, but one played on an ice rink.

“We came up with an idea called Ice Bocce. We’ve been developing the game, the rules, the components, and the philosophy of the whole sport and game since 2007,” owner of Tesent Games Tracy Scott said. “We took the game of bocce (and) we combined curling with it, shuffleboard and bowling.”

Scott developed a type of curl called a Slydysk. It’s extremely durable, and used in a game called Slydysk, which Scott describes as a subset of the larger sport of Ice Bocce.

“We’ve probably gone through 10 different types of disks through this process,” Scott said. “We finally came to a product that actually works. It’s the same stuff they use for doing the interior portions of the big turbines out in the ocean.”

The rules are simple in Slydysk and can be played individually or in teams. The first player throws a jack — or in this case a puck. That same person slides their Slydysk as close as they can to the jack. Their opponent tries to get even closer.

“Once you get closer than your opponent they your opponent throws until he get’s closer until all your dysks are gone,” Scott says. “Think of bocce on steroids. It’s really fast.”

Whoever has the more than one dysk closest to the jack earns points.

Scott says the whole family can join in on the fun, and they don’t even need to wear ice skates.

“The whole idea of this is to kind of bring a whole new activity to the ice sheets,” Scott says. “Anybody from the age of seven to, my mom was out there playing at 86.”

Learn how to play the game of Slydysk at the Joe Marmo/Wayne Lehto Ice Arena, 390 Rogers Street in Idaho Falls.