TAMPA, Fla. — It’s a sign the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey season is about to begin.
“For us, it’s like Christmas Day where we’re putting ice in for the NHL season,” Patrick Jesso, the ice operations manager at Amalie Arena, said.
A group of 15 Lightning Ice Crew members have a canvas of 200 feet by 85 feet.
Their work of art is mostly straight lines—some red, some blue—and a few circles.
“We’ll put all the red lines and blue lines, the advertisements, our Lightning logo, and the Amalie Arena logo. Seal that all in,” Jesso said. “Then we’ll start flooding for the next two days after that. By Thursday, we should be set and ready to go for the NHL season."
Most of the lines are done by hand.
“The string we will lay out on each side of the rink and freeze that in,” Jesso said. “That will be our outline to indicate our red lines and blue lines. That’s where we paint inside that string.”
The ice is made with over 13,000 gallons of water, applied in layers, and it’s only an inch and a quarter deep when finished.
The ice creation began on Monday. The concrete floor needed to be around 16 degrees on the surface, so water was added slowly in a fine mist to help create an even playing surface.
“For the first day or so, we’re going to put white paint down, a couple of layers of water, and freeze that over,” Jesso added.
The Lightning will play their first preseason game on this fresh coat of ice on Sept. 24 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
