Color of Hockey: Ramirez's anti-fog solution clears view at outdoor games

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Carlos Ramirez, whose company, Clear D Zone Products, helps keep rink glass fog-free at outdoor games like the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series and 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic.

Carlos Ramirez says fans sometimes mistake him for just a squeegee guy when they see him wiping the glass along the rink dasher boards at some of the NHL’s marquee outdoor games.

They don’t realize the 49-year-old Santa Ana, California, native is playing a huge role in helping them to actually see the action on the ice by applying a solution -- one he helped develop -- onto the glass to help prevent it from fogging up.

“When we’re applying the solution at the outdoor game, people are kind of looking at us, maybe smiling, maybe even kind of laughing, and like, saying, ‘What are you doing, washing the glass?’” Ramirez said. “It’s very, very behind the scenes, very small what we do but the same time, it’s either that or they’re going to play hockey in a white box, right?”

Ramirez and his company, Clear D Zone Products, worked at the 2026 Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers at loanDepot Park in Miami on Jan. 2 and will provide the same service at the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins at Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 1 (6:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS).

NHL vice president of hockey operations Derek King said Ramirez and his solution could play a vital role in fending off humidity-induced fog on the glass in Tampa, where the average high on Feb. 1 is 70.9 degrees Fahrenheit and the average low is 52.7.

“What was nice about Miami was that we knew going in, ‘Yeah, we’re the most southern that we’ve played before, but we’ve got that roof to really help us control the environment,’” King said. “Tampa is totally going to be a different environment. We’re outside, there’s no roof, but we are putting a building over the rink so we will protect the rink prior to the game.

"But you look at removing the structure on game day, now we’re truly an outdoor game. We’re going to need to make sure that we’ve got the glass taken care of, which Carlos will do.

“He's got a plan for when we when he comes into Tampa three days out from the game. He's already looking at the long-range forecast, and we'll test that anti-fog solution on some pieces of acrylic outside. And then just really, kind of get a timeline of when does it fog? How much does it fog? He's put a lot of thought and time into this, so it's one less thing for me to worry about.”

How did Ramirez become a go-to anti-fog guy? It all started washing cars. Ramirez had a shop near Honda Center and he detailed cars for Anaheim Ducks players on game days in 2007.

“Me being Hispanic, Mexican specifically, I didn’t grow up playing hockey, I didn’t know anything about hockey,” he said. “But when I started doing the players’ cars, I just wanted to get acquainted and familiarize myself with them. I started watching games so I could name them by name when they came and dropped off their car with me.”

Ramirez found himself slowly getting sucked into the sport, watching it more on TV and attending the Ducks’ morning skates when he dropped off cars. He said the drop-offs became part of the game-day ritual for some players.

Brent Mater, director of operations at Honda Center, was impressed by the quality of Ramirez’s auto detailing work and asked whether there was anything he could come up with to clean up the arena’s battle-scared boards and glass without harming the ice or people.

“I was just looking at the glass, and back in the day, there weren't a whole lot of products that you could use to keep the glass really looking sharp, especially after it went from tempered (glass) to acrylic,” Mater said.

Mater gave Ramirez a couple of beat-up retired panes from the arena, and Ramirez took them to a chemist he worked with on compounds for auto detailing.

“After that, every so often I’d see him and he goes, ‘Hey, I think we're getting closer to a solution,’” Mater said.

About nine months later, Ramirez showed Mater a glass pane in the arena he treated with his new-found solution.

“To be honest, I thought he was pulling the wool over my eyes because I thought, 'That's a brand-new pane,'” Mater said. “I asked my guys, ‘Did we just replace this pane?’ He (Ramirez) goes, ‘No, I worked on it this morning.’ I was completely blown away.”

Mater began talking up Ramirez’s rink glass polish, which led to a demonstration of his product at Staples Center, now Crypto.com Arena, in 2009, and eventually a distribution deal with Athletica Sports Systems, a designer and manufacturer of rink dasher boards.

“I was just blown away that I just stumbled into this, and it was unbelievable that the industry didn’t have something in set place to maintain their acrylic,” he said. “One thing led to another, and Clear D Zone Products was born.”

Opportunity knocked for Ramirez again in 2015 when his distributor asked if he could come up with an anti-fog solution. Challenge accepted again.

“I started doing research,” Ramirez said. “I’m not a chemist, I’m just a car wash guy from Southern California, but I stumbled into the solution. So I called my chemist right away and I said, ‘Look, I've been doing this, this and this.’ He just laughed and said, ‘I can’t believe you stumbled into this. It works because of this and that. So let me mix up a solution for you.’”

Turns out the NHL had a keen interest in Ramirez’s anti-fog creation for the 2015 Stadium Series between the Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, home of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.

“We were concerned about the glass fogging up just because of the temperature at night and the humidity,” King said. “He came up with the solution, and it worked wonders. It did what we needed it to do. With the games in Miami and now Tampa, we started talking to him and said, ‘Hey, Carlos, we need to revitalize that anti-fogging solution.’”

The American Hockey League made use of it, too, for its Outdoor Classic game between Bakersfield and Ontario at Memorial Stadium on the campus of Bakersfield College in California on Jan. 7, 2017.

The outdoor games are a family affair; Ramirez, his wife, Magdalena, and son, Andrew, personally tend to the glass at the events.

The family-owned business has branched out from cleaning and de-fogging products to designing and making ornaments, trophies, plaques, keychains and other items from recycled dasher boards and glass.

Business was brisk enough that Ramirez moved operations from Anaheim to Dahlonega, Georgia, in 2019 to have more work and storage space.

“I didn't plan for this, never in a million years, or dealing with the NHL,” Ramirez said. "But at the end of the day, I end up saying, ‘We live in America. This is the land of opportunity.’”