On with the snow — er, show: NHL says flurries are no issue
Ice guru confident outdoor game will proceed smoothly, in good weather or bad
There’s snow problem here.
NHL officials insist that a little bit of snow — OK, an awful lot of snow — isn’t slowing down preparations for Saturday night’s outdoor game between the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens at TD Place.
“It’s all on schedule and we’re good to go,” Derek King, the NHL’s senior manager of facility operations — a.k.a. ice guru — said Tuesday as workers were busy shovelling and blowing snow off the playing surface and outside the boards. “We’ll be ready for the practices Friday and good to go for game day on Saturday.”
From the heat pounding on Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for a January 2014 game to the heavy rain at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field in a 2011 contest, King has dealt with a variety of weather over the years.
He’s confident there’s nothing coming in the next few days that would create a serious problem.
According to the Weather Network, it will be -11 C on Saturday evening, with a wind chill making it feel like -15 C. There’s a 40-percent chance of flurries hitting the Canadiens and the Senators in the face as they skate around the ice.
“We’re getting the snow here now, but those are things we can work through,” King said. “Right now, there’s nothing that’s concerning for us with the weather.”
In an ideal world, King says, the nights would be a tad warmer. As all outdoor rink aficionados know, if the ice surface is too cold, there’s a risk of the top layer chipping away, making for an uneven playing surface. Yet the NHL is fully prepared to adjust when the temperature rises or falls.
“The evenings are a little cooler than we would like, but we have the technology on the truck,” King said. “We’re able to heat the floor and we’re heating the surface (Tuesday afternoon). We monitor things and make changes if we need to.”
King has been in Ottawa since Dec. 3 — one week after TD Place was covered in snow for the Grey Cup Game — and says it has been a smooth ride so far.
“From the day we parked the truck and started to build — we had rain one day, but the weather hasn’t slowed us down at all.”
He acknowledges there is a certain pride in watching an NHL ice surface emerge from nothing in the middle of a football or baseball stadium.
“To be in Ottawa, to work with the guys on this, you see all the hard work that goes into it,” he said. “Once the boards go up and we start making the ice and you get the lines and logos in, it’s always an exciting time.”