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0:00At 9:31 pm, the buzzer sounds, and the Chicago
Blackhawks November 6th game against the Detroit
0:06Red Wings ends with a 4-1 loss. Less than
twenty-two hours later, the Chicago Bulls
0:12game against the Minnesota Timberwolves begins,
so within seconds the process of converting United
0:16Center’s floor from a hockey rink to a basketball
court begins. First up is the broadcast crew,
0:22who quickly remove the remotely-operated cameras
mounted on the glass. Simultaneously, others
0:28roll up the rubber matts that cover the ground
through the Zamboni tunnel so that ice crews
0:31and others on skates can walk around safely.
Waiting behind them is the conversion crew—50 odd
0:37people, some full-time United Center employees,
but most part-timers that come in after their
0:41regular jobs. Much of the crew waits by with
the glass carts, which roll through the Zamboni
0:46tunnel as soon as it’s clear. These carts are
color-coded—red corresponds to the east glass,
0:51black for the west side, and white for the
glass surrounding the benches in the center.
0:56Removing the glass is as simple as applying a
suction cup, pulling upward, and grabbing the
1:00connector between each pane. The process moves
fast—it takes just a few seconds per piece and,
1:06if anything, it's limited by how fast the
crews can put the pieces away in the cart.
1:10While this occurs, cleaning crews move through
the sections of seats on the two far ends of
1:15the rink. These areas will entirely transform
over the coming hours, so their cleaning is
1:20prioritized over the rest of the arena so
that work can begin. And they specifically
1:24start on the west side since they’ll soon need a
forklift, and the forklift can’t currently access
1:29the rink—the slope on the Zamboni tunnel is too
steep, so they need to remove the seats that are
1:33currently covering the corner tunnel. In addition
to cleaning, others work on other small details
1:38to prep these seats for conversion—removing
cabling, railings, and other small elements.
1:44Within just 25 minutes of the buzzer going off,
as the final few fans are still in the arena,
1:49the last pieces of glass come down.
Up until this point in the process,
1:53the crews have taken advantage of the coarse ice
created through twenty-minutes of third-period
1:57professional hockey to provide traction
as they work, but with the next stage of
2:01the process involving covering the ice, it’s now
time for the Zamboni to come out and resurface it.
2:06After all, the ice is always there—from pre-season
through playoffs, no matter if there’s a
2:11basketball game or a concert, courts, stages,
whatever is always built on top of the ice,
2:17as unlike essentially every other element needed
for any United Center event, laying down the ice
2:22is a time-consuming process involving days of
careful layering and methodical placement of
2:27lines, logos, and advertisements. It’s just not
practical to lay down new ice for each game. And
2:33maintaining NHL-quality ice is also no easy feat,
so as much as resurfacing the ice immediately is
2:39about prepping it for its next use, it’s also
about ensuring that it stays high-quality
2:43even as an NBA game happens on top of it.
As the Zamboni does its work, part of the
2:48crew gets a brief break, but others continue work
on the seating. This is one of the more complex
2:53parts of the process as the entire geometry
of the playing area changes from hockey to
2:58basketball. An NBA court is less than half as long
and almost half as wide as an NHL rink, meaning
3:04there’s plenty more room for seating. In fact,
all-in-all, 1,200 additional seats are installed
3:09during the conversion. The main difference is that
seating extends closer to the playing surface,
3:14far past the hockey boards, but there are
also other, subtler differences. In rink-mode,
3:19the Zamboni needs access, which requires
having a large tunnel on one end. In addition,
3:25players access changes between sports—with
hockey, tunnels extend directly to the benches
3:29on one side of the arena, whereas in basketball
there’s access via tunnels on all four corners,
3:35both for players and for those sitting
in courtside seats. So that’s all to say,
3:39essentially the entire seating configuration near
the floor changes between hockey and basketball.
3:44To achieve this in a matter of hours, the
area’s seating sits on telescopic platforms.
3:49The individual seats fold down flat, then section
by section retract automatically. Once in their
3:54compact state, crews use a lifting platform to
move them away from the wall—these essentially
4:00operate like a hovercraft, shooting air at the
ground to reduce the effective weight of these
4:04massive seating sections so that the workers can
push them around with simply their own strength.
4:09This side, with seating extending further down, is
for hockey, whereas the side closer to the wall is
4:14for basketball as in the basketball configuration
these seating sections only go down as far
4:19as to the top of the boards, rather than the
bottom of the boards, to allow for more seating
4:23past the boards given the smaller court size. For
now, the workers flip the seating sections around
4:28so that the basketball side now faces the rink.
As the Zamboni finishes up, a few other assorted
4:33off-rink activities occur—a couple people work to
remove the corner sections of boards, as these are
4:38where the access tunnels will eventually be;
a few others mop the floor previously covered
4:42by the telescopic seating; while one person
presses the button to automatically retract
4:46the netting used to catch stray pucks.
Additionally, others go and stage the next
4:51round of materials. During hockey games, all
the basketball components are stored in one
4:55large room underneath one of the long sides of the
arena. The room is always organized the exact same
5:01way so that each cart is accessible when it’s
needed—the glass carts, used first, are closest
5:07to the door, whereas the pieces of the actual
basketball court, needed last, are furthest.
5:12With the Zamboni now done, crews bring out risers;
some small seating sections; and rubber flooring.
5:17One crew gets to work converting the benches where
hockey players sit. They start with filling in the
5:22bench access tunnels with platforms, then affixing
seating on top of them. Each tunnel takes up the
5:28space of sixteen seats, so considering
how close the seats are to the action,
5:32filling these in adds up to thousands of
dollars of additional revenue. There’s
5:36also space within what was the benches, so the
crews also place risers and seats within them.
5:42As this goes on, others quickly work to cover
the rink in 530 different pieces of insulated
5:48plywood flooring. Most of this is fairly
straightforward—equally-sized rectangles
5:53that fit together easily. Where it gets tricky
is towards the corners. To account for the curve,
5:59each piece is cut for its precise spot,
and therefore placing any of the 530 pieces
6:04incorrectly will throw off the whole process.
The last piece is the trickiest—on this night,
6:11it refuses to easily slot in, requiring the crew
to remove some pieces and rework the placement
6:16as the rest of the crew watches on, waiting
to be able to get to the next step in the
6:20conversion. But once in, to lock the flooring
in place, assuring it doesn’t slip even a bit,
6:25small spacers are hammered in around the edges.
Now, this point in the process is where the next
6:31steps sometimes diverge. While NHL hockey and NBA
basketball represent the core of United Center’s
6:37programming, the arena also hosts concerts, comedy
shows, even the Democratic National Convention.
6:43Most comedy shows and certain concerts use United
Center’s in-house setup—using these materials,
6:48they’re able to set up a variety of simple
configurations. Larger concerts from bigger acts,
6:53though, typically bring their own staging, so
the United Center conversion crew gets the rink
6:57converted to this point, then the tour’s staff
takes it from there. This can lead to some long
7:02nights. Not only do concerts last longer, but the
load-out of the tour’s equipment often takes two
7:07to four hours before the in-house crew can even
start their conversion. And the timeline of when
7:13a rink conversion needs to be done by isn’t the
start of the next game, it’s actually around 10:00
7:17AM when the visiting team is allowed to use the
ice for practice. So this leads to some long-hours
7:22and late nights for the crew, especially when
the schedule leads to back to back to back
7:27conversions. Things get even more complicated in
playoff season as there’s often no knowing whether
7:32a rink or court is going to be needed for a game
until the previous game finishes. And there are
7:37even some slight variations to the rink and court
setups that they need to pay attention to. When an
7:42NHL game is broadcast nationally, for example,
the broadcaster brings in additional cameras,
7:47and also setup an additional broadcasting position
rinkside, which is why this glass sits here on the
7:52glass cart on this particular night—it was taken
out since it was a national broadcast night.
7:57But this November conversion was, at
least relatively, simple—the rink to
8:01court transformation the crew is most used
to. Next in the process is measuring—they use
8:07tapes and chalk to mark out where the corner
of the court should go. Considering it’s far
8:11smaller than the rink, getting its location
right is important to ensure the geometry of
8:15the seating that will surround it works too.
Then the court comes out. Unlike the rest of
8:21the materials, the court itself is stored in a
standalone, temperature-controlled room. After
8:26all, it’s the most crucial, hardest-to-replace
element of the basketball setup, and there’s
8:30only one of them. Each piece is the same size, but
it still must be assembled in an exact order due
8:35to the lines, logos, and advertisements painted
on top, so they’re each individually numbered.
8:41Part of the crew lays out each piece in roughly
the right place, while others follow behind and
8:45deal with the precise placement, using a mallet
to align the pieces as tightly as possible. And
8:50precision is key—any slight misalignment with
the first pieces will compound the further
8:55they go on. A gap between flooring pieces is
unacceptable for NBA play, so if that happens
9:01they’ll have to go back and re-do their work.
While this goes on, work continues on the
9:05seating. Now rotated, the telescopic seating is
extended out again, then these pieces of rubber
9:11are placed in between each section so that
there’s no gap. Unlike when in hockey mode,
9:15the front of these seating sections now only go
as low as the top of the boards, rather than the
9:20bottom. The arena uses this additional height, and
the shorter length of the basketball court, to fit
9:25in additional rows of seating. Small sections are
rolled out by hand to fit in the corners, but the
9:30bulk of these rows is brought out by forklift and
carefully placed in front of the boards. Once all
9:36in place, these seating units too will extend out
automatically all the way down to court level.
9:41On the long sides of the court, risers are
placed in front of the boards to provide a
9:45slightly elevated sightline for the backmost row
of courtside seats. These coveted seats are placed
9:50one-by-one by hand, eventually fully surrounding
the court. The team also brings in the tables
9:55where league officials, TV announcers, broadcast
staff, and other personnel sit during games,
10:00as well as the digital advertising
boards positioned in front of them.
10:04Setting up the hoops is one of the last steps.
First they flip the shot clock up into position,
10:10affix its support wires to the backboard, then
extend the stanchion up to its full height. From
10:15there it’s all about calibration—assuring the
hoop is level, the backboard is level, and that
10:20the both are exactly where they’re supposed to be
relative to the court below. There’s also a quick
10:24check that the rim hinges down under pressure as
it’s supposed to during a slam dunk, but if not,
10:29there’s always the backup hoop in the storage
room that they can swap in at a moment’s notice.
10:34At this point, only small, finishing touches
remain—dealing with the last few bits of wiring,
10:39putting the last few seats in place, and
performing final inspections. With that,
10:43the conversion crew is done. The clock just
hit midnight, meaning the entire process,
10:48from the first panes of glass coming off to
the last seat getting positioned in place,
10:52took almost exactly two hours and thirty minutes.
It’s an incredible feat, and they’ll do it all
10:58over again the next night. After the Bulls game
they’re converting the arena into a stage setup
11:03for a comedy show, then two nights later
the rink will return for the Blackhawks,
11:07followed by another overnight conversion to court
for the Bulls. Across November alone, they’ll
11:12convert the arena twenty-one times, working
tirelessly to bring Chicago its entertainment,
11:18no matter which surface it requires.
As you can possibly tell, we actually filmed
11:24this video in-person at United Center. This was a
really great opportunity that not only allowed us
11:29to get this footage, but also all the information
that has allowed us to make, to my knowledge,
11:33the most detailed video on how arena conversion
works on YouTube. Of course, flying to Chicago and
11:39filming this was expensive, so I think this video
is also a testament to the benefits of injecting
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