NASHVILLE, Tenn. -
Workers at Bridgestone Arena spent time replacing the home ice of the Nashville Predators Tuesday morning.
During hockey season, the ice is covered for all events held at the arena with the exception of the circus, which was in town last weekend.
"We have anchors in the floor and for the high wire acts and such, they need to be able to tie into those points for anchors," explained Bridgestone Arena Director of Operations Chris Jones.
Jones told Nashville's News 2 there is a science to installing the new ice inside the arena and that crews use a device with nozzles to spray a fine mist of water onto the surface of the rink.
"You just don't go out and dump a bunch of water," he said, continuing, "You spray it out and what you typically want it to do is by the time you are halfway through spraying water on the sheet, where you started, should be set up."
After the rink is sprayed with the water, a layer of white paint is added to the ice before staff uses yarn frozen in place to paint lines.
"[The yarn] creates a dam and as you are painting it, it just holds it in," Jones explained.
After the lines are painted, crews begin the final stage of the work by using mesh logos which are added around the center ice.
"We have a crew which will come in at 6 o'clock at night and they will walk the wand all night long and in the morning we will have about ¾ of an inch of ice."
The final layer of ice is one inch thick and made with 10,500 gallons of water. The entire process takes 48 hours.
The Nashville Predators are scheduled to hold a practice on the new "green" ice on Friday before Saturday's game against the Saint Louis Blues.
For more information on the Nashville Predators, visit their Web site.
Related Story:
