Posted: 10/1/03

Time to make the ice

Today is a great day for me. After reading the front page article about the Maroon and Gold Arena and seeing that they were charging up the ice making equipment, I stopped by to see when they would be flooding and painting lines.

To my delight, rink supervisor Darrell Nelson was flooding a newly painted sheet of ice.

The process of putting in a sheet of ice is like building a model airplane. You can rush through it and it will look ok, but if you want it to look extraordinary, you must take your time and pay attention to the detail.

Now I may view the process of putting a new sheet of ice in as something a little more magical than most people, but I have a good reason. I have helped put two sheets of ice in myself. Having helped put sheets of ice in, I know the artistry involved.

The whole process is fascinating, I think so anyway.

It all begins with the preparation to turn the coolant compressors on. At one rink I worked at the coolant coils below the ice were in sand so we had to make sure the sand was level. At the other rink that I helped put a sheet of ice in, the coils were in the cement floor, just as they are at the Maroon and Gold Arena. On a cement floor, all that has to be done is sweeping, unless the coils need repair.

Then there is the first flood. This is a fairly simple process, get a fire hose and open it up. Once there is a good base of ice covering the rink, itís time to paint the ice white.

One rink I worked at was part of a park district so they borrowed a golf cart from the golf course that was retrofitted as a chemical sprayer. The holding tank and hoses were cleaned out, and paint put in. It took no more than two minutes to paint the entire ice surface white. The other process I saw used was a system bought from one of the ice-paint companies. A contraption built out of small copper piping with holes drilled in the bottom was led around the ice as a pump pushed the paint through and onto the ice. This latter process took about an extra day because it the contraption used to spray the paint only covers a small area and has to be walked around the rink. longer.

The next step is to paint the lines and circles, and itís a tricky process. All the lines have to be measured out exactly. Most rink supervisors I know that have done this a few times keep it simple though. They put a nail at the base of the boards where the lines are supposed to be. They tie a string on the nail and ëbada-bing-bada-boom, the lines are measured out. Itís a similar process for the circles too. String is run going end to end, and side to side to find the center of the circles. Once the center is found, a giant make-shift compass is used to draw a circle on the ice. When it comes time to paint the lines and circles, all one has to do is follow the lines.

When painting the lines, you have to be careful not to move too slowly or else your paint brush will freeze to the ice. The paint freezes quickly too so any mistakes are fixed by using a razor to scrap up the paint.
After all the lines are painted, more water is added to the ice. The only problem is you have to build up the ice slowly right after painting the lines. If you just opened a fire hose on the lines, they would wash away because the paint is powder based. You have to lightly sprinkle the lines until there is a nice layer of ice over them. After that, you can bring out the fire hose. The final step is to bring out the Zamboni and level the ice.

The whole process takes about a week. By the time this paper comes out it will have been completed at the Maroon and Gold Arena which should now be open.

Now I just wonder how long it will be until I get my hockey bag out of the attic and put on the goalie equipment to play on the ice at the Maroon and Gold Arena for the first time.

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