No, Busch Stadium III was not designed with hosting the National Hockey League's Winter Classic in mind.
"Why didn't you build in the rink?" St. Louis Blues chairman Tom Stillman jokingly asked St. Louis Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III Thursday afternoon after the league's $1 million mobile refrigeration unit arrived at the ballpark.
"We probably should have thought about that," DeWitt said with a chuckle. "We definitely wanted to do a lot of different things. We obviously couldn't predict how many different things we were able to do. You've got concerts, soccer, now hockey, we've got football.
"The versatility of a building like this is pretty incredible, particularly now with the way technology is."
The NHL's 300-ton capacity refrigeration unit will allow Busch to host the Classic, pitting the Blues against the Chicago Blackhawks at noon local time Jan. 2. The stadium will also stage the Blues-Blackhawks Winter Classic Alumni Game at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 31.
Building a NHL-caliber outdoor rink is no small task. It takes more than Fredbird, a garden hose and a really cold night.
"We'll probably be averaging 16 to 18 hours a day," said Dan Craig, the NHL's senior director of facility operations. "When you guys are sleeping, we'll be working to put this thing together."
Big league baseball diamonds are gently sloped for drainage, so the first step is to build a level sub floor on footings. Decking board goes on top of that, then 243 interlocking aluminum ice trays.
The dasher boards are secured into the sub floor. From the refrigeration unit, workers pump up to 3,000 gallons of glycol coolant through hoses and into the aluminum trays.
That removes heat from the surface and creates the optimal temperature for the rink's ice, 22 degrees.
Then workers build the ice slowly, spraying a fine mist of tap water over the trays with watering wands. Hundreds of applications and up to 20,000 gallons are needed to build ice 2 inches thick.
"Hopefully we'll be spraying our first water on Monday night, if not, then sometime by noon on Tuesday," Craig said.
The ice is built in three layers. Once the first layer is down, the ice is colored with about 350 gallons of white water soluble paint.
"We make sure that we have a good base before we even do our white," Craig said. "So we get to the white paint, the set-up here will be almost identical to Scotttrade Center, there will be an inch, inch-and-a-quarter thick on top of the white."
After the second layer is complete, the lines and other markings are painted or applied. Then a thin third layer is applied to seal it. Outdoor stadium ice is up to 1 inch thicker than indoor arena ice.
This is not a plug-and-play operation. Once the rink is complete, workers must closely monitor changes in the weather and rink conditions.
Wireless sensors embedded in the ice all over the rink to help the crew make minute-by-minute adjustments.
Bright sunlight can reflect off the boards and soften the ice along the rink edges. To protect against melting, workers use an insulated tarp to protect the ice.
In October, the NHL's Heritage Classic game in Winnipeg suffered a sunshine delay of nearly two hours.
Rain can cause the ice to go soft, forcing workers to keep the refrigeration unit running. Excessive cold can make the ice brittle, forcing workers to increase the surface temperature to keep surface right.
Thursday's weather would have been just about perfect to host an outdoor game. "If we could have 26 to 28 degrees and cloud cover, everybody would be comfortable and the players would be very happy," Craig said. "That would be ideal for me."
But his crew has overcome much higher temperatures to keep ice playable.
"We've done two games in California now," Craig said. "Last year when we were in Denver it was almost 70 degrees there as well. That's why we build these (refrigeration) trucks."
