The outdoor ice surface at Investors Group Field is beginning to take shape with the NHL Heritage Classic between the Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets just over a week away.
Crews have installed the boards and are about to start making the ice to complete the transformation of a football field to a hockey rink.
Mike Craig, the NHL's senior manager of facility operations, said all the work is right on schedule.
"The last few days, we were able to get down our ice pans and hooked up all of our piping," said Craig. "Yesterday, we set up our dasher boards, which really makes it start to look like a hockey rink out there."
Craig said most of the ice-making will happen in the evening, nighttime, and in the early morning.
Making the ice requires spraying the playing surface about 200 times to create the best-quality skating conditions.
"It's actually a lot more time-consuming than what a lot of people realize," said Craig. "As soon as we start, we basically use a spray boom and we spray it down and we use a lot of fine, fine layers of water to build it up and that just creates a denser sheet of ice."
A mobile refrigeration truck will help keep the ice frozen. Craig said any warm October weather shouldn't pose any problems.
The league has hosted outdoor games in cities with warmer climates, including one played in Los Angeles.
"I think that we've dealt with a lot of that in the past at different events," said Craig. "I think that we've kind of learned how to deal with a lot of that, even if it's kind of warmer throughout the day."
The Heritage Classic will be played at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 23. The puck drops on the alumni game between the Oilers and Jets at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22.
The league said a limited number of tickets are still available.
