Perfect conditions needed for Olympic ice

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Kim Smith Dedam
Kim Smith Dedam

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November 13, 2009

Crews prepare rink for use in Skate America trials

By KIM SMITH DEDAM The Press Republican Fri Nov 13, 2009, 10:41 PM EST

LAKE PLACID — Perfect texture in Olympic ice is a fine art.

What begins as an otherwise drab, gray concrete slab turns slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, to a frozen field of dreams.

While skaters slip smoothly across gleaming surfaces before thousands of fans, eyes behind the scenes watch temperature, much as a chef would making candy.

Air temperature, ice temperature, rink humidity — even a draft from an open door — matter.

And it's a big year for skating action here.

This weekend, Skate America descends on Lake Placid from around the world, with 60 top figure skaters competing in qualifiers for the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

FORGIVING ICE
Danny Wood, rink facilities manager for the Olympic Regional Development Authority, is ready.

He has groomed Olympic Center ice since 1979.

"Temperature is a little more critical with the ice than the air. Ice needs to be more forgiving for figure skating. The toe picks could chisel the ice if it's too hard."

And practice rinks have to be in precisely the same condition as competition ice.

"We keep records for that," Wood said. "We have records of every event ever held here."

PREPARING TO PAINT
The Lake Placid Olympic Center's three rinks are repainted and groomed as schedules change.

Work for Skate America began in the 1980 rink this week, using special gray ice paint for television cameras.

The event will be telecast live on NBC Sunday.

From the youngest hockey competitor to international superstars, the ice is built with care.

"We take every event seriously. We like the ice always looking good for our guests," Wood said as the ORDA crew got ready to repaint the 1932 Olympic rink for Can/Am Hockey.

Before they began, the clear base ice covered the cement, minus boundary lines, goal marks or circles.

LAYER ON LAYER
At 8 a.m., ice builders Don Brown, Phil Dever, Rich Hamm and Robby Mihill muckled onto their gear, wearing winter gloves, and mixed special white paint powder and water in a 60-gallon vat.

Ice paint is sprayed in a mist through tiny nozzles spread evenly across a 4-foot horizontal pipe.

Mihill looped the heavy sprayer under one arm and began to walk methodically backward around the rink.

Like a choreographed routine, the rest of the crew swept 200 feet of hose behind him.

And the rink turned bright white.

"It freezes more than dries," Wood explained. "Then we'll lightly spray over this with water to freeze it in, flooding with lighter layers, progressively getting heavier as we go along."

DRILL TEST
Hockey lines were then marked in yarn and frozen under more layers. Special event logos were laid out using paper stencils with chalk dust pounced through them.

Then ice builders hand-painted the colored lines, sitting steadily above their work on milk crates, a job this crew has done hundreds of times.

More layers of water slowly seal the paint into the perfect texture of ice.

It's a process that takes several days, with ORDA crews working around the clock.

An experienced ice meister can tell ice depth by the way the colors look underneath it, Wood said.

But thickness is tested before competition using a tiny drill.

Patience is a key aspect of an Olympic job that is part art, part engineering.

Wood learned the craft from ORDA Olympic Center General Manager Dennis Allen, an internationally recognized master ice maker. They have groomed Olympic rinks around the world, from Salt Lake City to Torino.

Speed isn't the name of the ice-making game.

It's time and temperature.

"I enjoy it," Wood said, "I'm right at home here in the rink."

E-mail Kim Smith Dedam at: kdedam@pressrepublican.com