Face-Off Frenzy PowerBand Hockey Review

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As a child who grew up through the arcade era, one popular game we played a lot of was Air Hockey.  That was a game that required a big table, power and lots of quarters.  Imagine playing Air Hockey in your home without even needing power?  Enter Face-Off Frenzy Powerband Hockey.

Face-Off Frenzy is a portable hockey game that is playable on both hard and carpeted floors.  How do they achieve this?  Well in the box, you get 2 paddles and 2 pucks as well as the rink itself.

After assembling the frame and bands, you can actually keep it together and slide it under a bed if you want. You can also assemble it in a shorter square form if you have reduced space.  I highly recommend the rectangle as it keeps the kids further apart and avoids heads getting knocked into each other during the frenzy.

What makes it workable on carpet is the very smooth sides on the puck and paddles.  It glides easily when hit with the paddle and it just as much fun as playing air hockey.

For hard floors like wood or linoleum, you just take the bottom of the puck off and flip it around and then you have a soft felt like surface.  Then you take the round felt stickers and put it on the second puck.  Now you can play it in the kitchen or the basement if the floor is smooth enough.  It will not work on concrete, so playing with this game outside is out.

Here’s a picture of some of my Cub Scouts playing the game at a recent Den Meeting.  They had a blast playing the square mode of the game.  When asked if they would like to get the game for Christmas, I got a resounding yes from the whole Den!

The only thing I did not like, as a parent, was that my son was so excited to play the game, he and mom opened the package when I was out of town and inadvertently lost some of the parts.  I had to hunt around to find them.  There are little rubber bands that keep the elastic band attached to the frame correctly.  Fortunately I found most of them.  I did have to substitute some regular rubber bands.  Thankfully, they worked like a charm.

Face-Off Frenzy PowerBand Hockey is available at Amazon.com and Target.com for $34.99 plus S&H.

What I liked: It is a lot of fun.  Perfect game for a boy or girl for Christmas.  Also a great game to keep around for those rainy or snowy winter days.

What needs improvement: I didn’t like the amount of parts.  Would like to see something other than rubberbands to hold the power band to the frame.  Would also like to see the band be a bit tighter in the default setup.  Would make the game a bit more full of frenzy!

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About the Author

Joel McLaughlin
Joel is a consultant in the IT field and is located in Columbus, OH. While he loves Linux and tends to use it more than anything else, he will stoop to running closed source if it is the best tool for the job. His techno passions are Linux, Android, netbooks, GPS, podcasting and Amateur Radio.