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THE COOLEST PLACE ON CAMPUS
Story by Allison Kemp, BGSU Student
Recreational Sports Writer - Fall 2007
The ice looked nothing like I’ve ever seen before. It was house-less and line-less and covered in hundreds of yellow water
spots. As a curler, I had only ever seen the ice in its completed stage. I knew the ice was removed during the summer months,
but I had no idea the process to refill the BGSU Curling Ice was anywhere near as complex as the process is; I speak from
experience now. I’ve laid lines and I've painted and I’ve now been instructed on the rest of the process.
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Curling is a sport played on a sheet of ice. Think chess and shuffleboard and that will give you some idea of what this sport
is. Since there is ice involved, that means the room is cold. The air temperature is cold, but the ice temperature is colder.
But I was used to that. Rather, I was shocked that the ice was only white. I thought the lines and houses were on the concrete
and could be seen through the ice. I was wrong, entirely wrong.
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I spent three mornings with Erik Nagel, the Ice Arena superintendent, and Pete Schwedersky, from the Ice Arena’s maintenance
department. By the time I began preparing the ice for curling, the rink had been flooded once, painted white and sprayed again.
There was approximately three-eighths inches of ice.
The first task we undertook was spraying the ice with water to remove the frost that had collected on the ice. Then nails
were hammered into the small wall surrounding the ice. There were seven nails on both the west and east end of the ice. A
string was pulled taut between each of the nails, about an inch above the ice, so there could be a guide for the lines that
were needed. The lines signifying the center and edges of each sheet are not paint, but are a woven material similar to felt.
The material is rolled from one hack to the hack at the other end of the ice and it can’t get twisted. Then it must be checked
for accuracy – one edge of the line must be directly in line with the string. If there were any water spots in the way of
the line, they had to be removed, too. And there is an excessive amount of the water drops this year, Erik said.
After everything was perfect, the line was sprayed with the hose, which froze the line to the ice. I helped with the four
black center lines and the three red edge lines were laid later that day. The tee lines, back lines and hog lines would be
laid after the painting.
The next day was a painting day. There is a special water-based paint used for painting ice. The white paint is a powder,
but the red and blue paint used for the circles in the houses is a liquid. Lines were drawn into the ice to signify the boundaries.
There are four rings in each house. The smallest is the button and is one foot in diameter. The second is four feet, the third
is eight feet and the fourth is 12 feet. Every second and fourth ring is painted either red or blue at BGSU. And next year,
Erik hopes to paint the rings orange and black. If the second ring is red, than the fourth ring is blue, and vice versa. By
painting the rings different colors, it provides the vice skips of each team an easier opportunity to tell whose rock is closest
to the center for scoring purposes.
I painted three red rings over two days. Precision was required because the paint froze to the ice just after contact, so
there was no room for mistakes. And if the line of paint at the edge of the ring would not be the same distance from the center
the whole way around the ring, one team’s rock may appear closer than the other team’s rock when it really isn’t. After the
painting was finished, the other necessary lines would be laid, the area where the rocks are kept needed to be painted and
the ice would be sprayed a few times before flooding it, bringing its height to about 1 inch. If the ice was flooded without
a covering over the paint, the paint would melt and things wouldn’t be pretty. Pete said the ice would look like it had pinkeye,
which is not acceptable.
Before the ice can be curled on, the hacks need to be replaced and the ice needs to be pebbled. Pebbling the ice creates little
bumps on the ice so the stones have something to grip when they are moving down the ice. Without pebbling, the ice would be
smooth and the rocks would not curl. And that would defeat the purpose of the game.
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