Rhino Play Air-powered 7.5 ft Hockey Table Review

Overall Rating

Affordable, sturdy construction, easy to assemble, sleek, automated scoring.

Motors underpowered for the supplied pucks.

This is a review of the Rhino Play Air-powered 7.5 ft Hockey Table, Model G03996, made by Escalade Sports. It was purchased from Costco for $389.99 in August, 2005.

There is no information that I could find regarding this product on the web at this writing.

Disclaimer: I am not a very experienced table hockey player.

The table looks nice: black with silver trim, with a bright blue playing surface. It weighs about 260 lbs.

Assembly takes about 3 hours and requires about 3 adults to turn the table upright without rotating over the legs. The assembly is well documented and fairly straight-forward. The only issues we had was one of the screws for the legs was difficult to insert and the corner pieces were also a little tight. Moving the table will be quite difficult once it is installed, so be sure to have it in the right place before assembly.

The table works well. The edges of the playing surface is made of aluminum and seems sturdy. There are two motors providing the air-flow. The scoring is automatic along with the time keeping. Some audio is played to recreate a hockey rink, including an announcer who signals goals.

There are four strikers and 4 pucks supplied.

The table is fairly stable during play. The legs can be leveled individually to keep the pucks movement unbiased.

The downside for our table was that the puck would simply stop moving in some parts of the table. Calling Escalade Sports support provided some suggestions which included vaccuuming the surface holes, and applying Pledge to the surface to make it more slick. Neither solved the problem. I felt the motors might be underpowered, so they sent out a pair of motors. This made no difference.

Finally, I purchased some Carrom brand lightweight table hockey pucks ($2.50 each online). They weigh about 8 oz instead of 22 oz as the original pucks shipped with the table. The lighter pucks float much better and do not stop moving. They work well with the automated scoring also.

The game is a fast-paced and a lot of fun. Well worth the money. I would recommend it, if you buy the lightweight pucks.

Manufacturer's website: http://www.escaladesports.com

Members' Comments onbmathew's Review

• momsalex on 20th Oct 2005

  I think this is an awesome air hockey table for the money. I don't agree with the comments of the last reviewer who said that the puck was too heavy or that the fans are not powerful enough.

• rmpc on 25th Oct 2005

  Would you please post the web site where you purchased the Carrom pucks? Thank you

• bmathew on 30th Nov 2005

  Correction: the puck weight is in grams, not ounces. The lightweight pucks can be bought from several retailers.

• dgaona10 on 7th Aug 2006

  I recently purchased a used Rhino Air Hockey Table and we did notice that the pucks that came with it didn't seem to float and stopped moving in certain areas. We sanded down the rough spots with fine grit paper and the pucks floated much better.

• cajpooh96 on 20th Apr 2008

  Our Scoreboard has begun malfunctioning after having table for 2.5 years. Where time should be we get an "E" (error message?). Also the zero's won't light up where scores should be. No crowd noise, etc. etc. Took it apart and couldn't see any visible damage. Probably will need to get a replacement part.