ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 10, 1996 TAG: 9611080109
SECTION: ROANOKE CIVIC CENTER PAGE: RCC-11 EDITION: METRO
Making ice at home is easy: Pour water into a plastic tray, spill some water on the floor as you pop the tray in the freezer and forget about it. Wait an hour or so, and you've got ice cubes. If only it were that easy to make ice for The Roanoke Express.
The operations staff at the Roanoke Civic Center is charged with transforming the center's basketball, concert or monster truck show floor into an ice rink suitable for the valley's professional hockey team.
The staff works around the hockey schedule to squeeze in other events at the center such as concerts and trade shows. With 34 regular-season home games, keeping the surface ready for the Express is a challenge.
Some concerts and events take place above the ice using Homosote, a 1-inch thick insulating boards, to cover the floor. While the ice remains, everything else - the Plexiglass walls, side risers, dashers, goals - must be moved, and that takes 419 hours of labor.
Sometimes, the ice is removed because contracts require it. The civic center staff removed ice 14 times last year for events that couldn't go over ice.
Most hockey arenas in the country leave ice in all season because of the huge amount of work that removing it involves. If you've ever wondered how the ice rink comes to life, wonder no more. MAKING ICE
Before the ice can be made, the floor must be cleaned. Sometimes that is a simple task, sometimes it takes several hours, a lot of detergent and a bulldozer, after a monster truck show with a dirt floor for instance. It takes 16 to 18 hours for the floor to reach 17 degrees F, the necessary temperature for making ice.
Compressors are turned on to begin cooling the ethylene glycol, a colorless, viscous liquid used as an antifreeze solvent, that runs through 7 1/2 miles of pipe underneath the coliseum floor.
While the floor is brought down from 68 to 70 degrees to 17 degrees, the hockey fixtures are installed. This takes 130 to 144 hours of labor.
Once the floor reaches 17 degrees, the ice making begins. About one-sixteenth of an inch of ice is made an hour. It takes three people four hours to lay down a quarter-inch of ice.
After the first quarter-inch is down, it takes six people three hours to paint the ice white using 180 gallons of paint and a machine that sprays a 10-foot wide section at a time.
After the paint dries, two more coats of ice are frozen (two hours) and then lines are carefully placed using paper tape made for hockey lines. The measurements must be exact for regulation hockey. Marking the ice takes 60 hours of labor.
Sponsor logos also are placed on the ice at this time. Once the lines and logos are in place, more ice is made. A minimum of three-fourths of an inch of ice is needed to play hockey, but the normal ice thickness is 1 to 1 1/4 inches. This thickness should be maintained. As the ice thickness builds up because of constant resurfacing between games and public skating sessions, it is shaved with the Olympia ice resurfacer. It takes about half an hour to resurface the ice. The ice is shaved lightly and then coated with a thin layer of water.
The entire ice-making process takes 40 hours, which translates into 275 hours of labor for the civic center staff, who work around the clock.
While the ice is down and there are no games, the ice is open to the public or rented to private groups.
REMOVING THE ICE
The glycol is slowly heated until the temperature is warm enough (about 32 to 34 degrees) to break the ice's bond with the concrete floor. This usually takes 3 1/2 hours. The hockey fixtures are taken out while the temperature is increased.
Two front end loaders and two dump trucks from the department of public works are used to remove the ice. The loaders break the ice loose and pile it in the center of the floor.
Five men break the ice up with shovels and hammers. Once all the ice is in a pile, the trucks are loaded, and the ice is hauled away.
The crew uses mops and squeegees to push the water off the floor and into the drains. After that, the floor scrubbing machine is used to clean the floor. This takes 18 hours.
After the ice is taken out, the floor is heated to 50 or 55 degrees to help dry the floor. The temperature can not be brought up too quickly or the floor will crack.
At this point, crews can start setting up for the next event. The dedicated civic center staff is responsible for the success of the hockey seasons. Hockey has increased the workload of every center staff from administrators to parking attendants. The management staff and the Express owners have worked together to make it successful and ticket sales prove it.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB