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It looks like regular ice, it feels like ice, it’s slippery like ice- but this ice is very different from ice in any other hockey arena. The rink surface is made from rain and snow run off from the roof of the building. What’s more, it’s the first of the kind in the country.

Syracuse Crunch owner Howard Dolgon said, “To be the first in all of hockey to have the rainwater used for your ice and for your resurfacing says a lot about this community, our county executive, and as a team to be out front is something we strive to do.”

It’s part of the "Save the Rain" campaign adopted by Onondaga County. Nearly 15,000 gallons of rainwater can be held in a storage tank located within the basement of the War Memorial where the Syracuse Crunch play.

The project is intended to recapture rain water and snow melt runoff from the War Memorial Arena roof, reusing the water for ice production and maintenance.

Senior scientist of Atlantic States Legal Foundation Samuel Sage said, “A lot of people don’t think about the water rich area of Central New York as in need of water conservation. But saving water is a major need. It saves in economics and everything else. The less water you have to use, the less water you have to pump and the less water you have to treat.”

The rainwater collected will help contribute to the required 250 million gallons of rain water the county hopes to capture before 2018.

"If we can reuse water numerous times besides just pumping it from a clean lake, using it and flushing it back down to the sewage treatment plant, we’re saving all along. The consumer is saving, in this case the Crunch, but the public is saving, too,” said Sage.

Dolgon said, “The community is supportive, it’s forward thinking and there’s positives not only for the exposure it gets, but it’s good for the people who live here.”

Dolgan said there is little difference skating on regular water versus rainwater.