NHL begins Stadium Series buildout in Minnesota

Dan Craig was unfazed by the 7-below wind chill that whipped through the concourse of TCF Bank Stadium Tuesday afternoon.

NHL ice guru Dan Craig addresses the media as TCF Bank Stadium prepares to host a Stadium Series game. Photo by Lonny Goldsmith

“This isn’t cold,” said Craig, bristling at the suggestion from a reporter. “Come on. This is good. We’re fine.”

Craig, the NHL’s senior director of Facilities Operations/Hockey Operations, was at the site of the Feb. 21 Stadium Series game between the Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks. And he would know what cold is like, having overseen the rink construction at 16 of the NHL’s previous outdoor games, both warm (Dodger Stadium in 2014 at 63 degrees) and cold (Edmonton in 2003, when it was 2-below zero). This time around, however, Craig said the setup is unique.

“This is first time that we set it up cold,” Craig said. “Usually we’ve been really good on the set up and then it’s become cold as we’ve been building and for the event itself. But this is the first time we encountered cold on the set up.”

Despite outdoor games becoming a multiple time per season event, no two build-outs have been the same.

“That’s the fun part for all the guys,” he said. “There’s no book. you hit the ground running and you adapt as you go.”

Don Renzulli, the NHL’s executive vice president for events, said that a crew of 50 people is prepping the field surface so that Craig’s crew can build the ice. He said that the difference between outdoor games now and the 2008 Winter Classic in Buffalo is that the NHL owns everything it needs to build the ice. He also said the process is far more efficient.

“The whole process is different now,” he said. “When we first did this it was plywood and it was Styrofoam panels to get us level. Now, what’s going to be under the rink is going to be like stage decking. The ice is the easy part. I leave that to Dan and worry about everything else.”

Craig said he was expecting the first spray of water onto the surface to start “about Friday.” The underdeck which goes on top of the FieldTurf that the University of Minnesota football team plays on, had covered the east end zone until the 10-yard line when the media was allowed into the stadium. In a time-lapse video released by the NHL, that decking had covered the majority of the field by Wednesday morning.

Artist rendering of the Stadium Series rink at TCF Bank Stadium. Photo Courtesy NHL

To make the ice, it means getting the rink cold – despite being in the outdoors in Minnesota. To do this, up to 3,000 gallons of glycol coolant is pumped into custom-made aluminum trays that are configured on the field of the stadium. Running through a series of hoses from the refrigeration unit to the field, the glycol chills the trays in order to keep the ice near its ideal surface temperature of 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Following the placement of the ice trays, the rink boards are installed.

Once the boards are up and the ideal surface temperature is attained, the actual process of building the ice begins. In an NHL arena, the ice is built to a thickness of approximately 1-1.25 inches. The outdoor rinks require ice up to 2 inches thick to withstand the extreme weather.

Water is added as slowly as possible, in as fine a mist as the process will allow. Workers pass the spray wand over the ice rink hundreds of times, providing a more-even freeze and better-quality playing surface. Each inch of ice thickness requires approximately 10,000 gallons of water. For finishing touches, the ice surface is whitened using approximately 350 gallons of water soluble paint. The lines and logos then are painted and placed on the surface, with more ice built on top.

While it was cold as the crews were preparing the field, Craig said that for game day, he was hoping for an overcast day.

“We can be at zero but if we have a hard sunshine, along the boards we can have a bit of an issue,” he said. He added that he’ll be depending on his team at the stadium to make sure everything looks right on the ice. “Everybody has their turn of what they’re supposed to be watching on every day. It’s not just one set of eyes, we’ve got 12 sets of eyes out there.

“A lot of good guys from this area and there’s a lot of pride on the line.”

For Craig, who lives near the Twin Cities on the western edge of Wisconsin, this event represents a home game of sorts for him, although he says that his family is on their own to secure tickets. It’s also a home game for Travis Larson, the ice manager at Xcel Energy Center who is working his eighth event with Craig, and has some of his team working the event as well.

For Renzulli, the best feedback he gets is from the players remarking at how an outdoor game represents a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the players.

“They like to come out and see 50,000 people,” he said. “They don’t get that experience all the time. They’re walking into an arena with 15,000 to 20,000. When you walk out here, it’s a little bit different.”