09/02/10 Getting Dorothy Hamill ready for its 40th season

When you go to a hockey game, or a skating rink, and the Zamboni comes out to resurface the ice, what you are witnessing is just the final step in what can sometimes be a long and arduous process. In fact, getting the ice ready for a new season of skating and hockey can take up to a week -- or more. To learn more about the process, the Citizen visited the Dorothy Hamill Skating Rink in Byram last Friday and talked with rink manager Richard Ernye, who was in the midst of preparing the rink for the 2010-11 season. Ernye talked about the ice-building and ice maintenance process and provided some insight into the current state of the rink as it enters its 40th season.

Richard, thanks for the time. I have to say it's interesting to see the ice still in the preparation process. How do you go about getting it ready for the season?

Thanks for the interest. First, at the end of every season, we melt the ice down to the concrete floor. The paint is degradable and just turns into a powder that we vacuum up. At the start of the next season, we begin by putting down a layer of ice between a quarter-inch to a third of an inch as a base. Then, we put three coats of pure-white paint on the ice to give it its color. We seal the paint in with water using pump sprays and watering buckets. Then we measure out the dimensions of the rink and figure out where we put the lines and face-off circles. We then lay down templates and paint everything in. Like with the white paint ,we spend the next stage of the process sealing the lines in with water, which is what we're doing today. Later this afternoon or possibly tomorrow, when we determine that everything is sealed in nicely, we'll take the Zamboni out and begin building up the ice the rest of the way.

How many more layers do you put on and how long does that take?

We put an extra inch-and-a-half to two inches of ice down and it'll probably take us the rest of the week because the layers aren't very thick. The idea is to have it done in time for Labor Day Weekend because we plan on being open for travel hockey teams on Saturday, the fourth.....

Source:

http://www.greenwichtime.com/default/article/Getting-Dorothy-Hamill-ready-for-its-40th-season-642359.php