2022 NHL Stadium Series ice crew protects rink from rain, warm weather

NASHVILLE -- The ice looked perfect Wednesday, frozen, white, with all the usual NHL markings and the logo for the 2022 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series.

"We're actually in really good shape," NHL senior manager of facility operations Derek King said.
Key word: actually.
When the Nashville Predators play the Tampa Bay Lightning at Nissan Stadium on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET; TNT, SN360, TVAS2), it will be another minor miracle made possible by the ice crew.
Rain and temperatures as high as the mid-60s threatened the ice Tuesday, but the crew was prepared and worked around the clock to protect the sheet.
"What Derek and his team did yesterday, it put us in a perfect position to have a great weekend," NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer said.
This will be the NHL's 34th outdoor game since 2003. The League has faced many challenges and played in all kinds of conditions -- from 65 to minus 6 degrees at face-off, from sun to snow to wind to rain -- and it has learned from experience.

Four days before the Predators played the Dallas Stars in the 2020 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, rain and temperatures as high as 69 melted the top layers of ice. The crew lost half the white paint and all the lines and logos, and it had to rebuild the sheet.
Looking at the forecast this time, the crew changed its approach.
When the NHL builds an outdoor rink, a refrigeration truck pumps glycol through an aluminum floor to transfer heat. The crew mists fine layers of water on top of the floor for hours to produce a dense, thick sheet of ice worthy of an NHL regular-season game.
Typically, the crew lays an inch of ice and paints it white. It lays another quarter inch of ice and puts down the lines and logos, which are made of fabric to prevent melting and running of paint. Finally, it lays about another inch of ice on top of that.
Here, the crew started earlier and put the paint, lines and logos deeper into the sheet. The white paint is half an inch from the bottom instead of an inch; the lines and logos are at three quarters of an inch instead of an inch and a quarter.
"We've basically got a thicker base on top of that white," King said.

The rain started about 9 a.m. CT on Tuesday and didn't stop until about 3 a.m. CT on Wednesday, sometimes in a downpour, sometimes letting up. It isn't practical to put a tent over an NHL-sized rink, and if you let too much water sit on top of the ice for too long, it will melt the ice underneath.
The crew opened the doors for the ice resurfacing machines, and it removed end boards on the opposite side. Through the rain for most of those 16 hours, the crew used three John Deere Gator utility vehicles with squeegees to push water off the ice.
"We had some lightning strikes, so we had to clear the field [at times]," King said. "That was a little worrisome."
King said more rain fell than the NHL expected, and the crew removed about 2 1/2 inches of water. But the NHL didn't lose as much ice as it expected to. The truck kept up, and by early Wednesday morning, the rain froze to the sheet, adding to the ice instead of melting it.
"Those torrential downpours yesterday were concerning," King said. "But then as the day went on, with the truck running and the temperatures we were pushing out to the floor, everything just kind of came together, and the plan worked.
"We had a few spots that we were concerned about, but really by about midnight last night, whatever rain was falling, we were actually building ice. So everything worked out great."
The crew installed the glass and the advertisements on the boards Wednesday.
More rain is expected Wednesday night and Thursday. But the ice is now 2 3/4 inches thick, about a half an inch thicker than usual, giving the NHL more margin for error, and the forecast calls for a high of 54 and a low of 38 on Thursday.
It's supposed to be partly cloudy and dry when the Predators and Lightning practice at Nissan Stadium on Friday, with a high of 50 and a low of 32, and it's supposed to be overcast and dry for the game Saturday, with a high of 48 and a low of 29.
"There's some rain still in the forecast," Mayer said. "We're going to look out for that. But because the temperatures have dropped, we don't think that that rain is threatening at all. Yeah, we're ready for a big weekend."