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How Arenas Transform From Hockey to Basketball in 2.5 Hours
How Arenas Transform From Hockey to Basketball in 2.5 Hours
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Legendas (166)
0:00
At 9:31 pm, the buzzer sounds, and the Chicago Blackhawks November 6th game against the Detroit
0:06
Red Wings ends with a 4-1 loss. Less than twenty-two hours later, the Chicago Bulls
0:12
game against the Minnesota Timberwolves begins, so within seconds the process of converting United
0:16
Center’s floor from a hockey rink to a basketball court begins. First up is the broadcast crew,
0:22
who quickly remove the remotely-operated cameras mounted on the glass. Simultaneously, others
0:28
roll up the rubber matts that cover the ground through the Zamboni tunnel so that ice crews
0:31
and others on skates can walk around safely. Waiting behind them is the conversion crew—50 odd
0:37
people, some full-time United Center employees, but most part-timers that come in after their
0:41
regular jobs. Much of the crew waits by with the glass carts, which roll through the Zamboni
0:46
tunnel as soon as it’s clear. These carts are color-coded—red corresponds to the east glass,
0:51
black for the west side, and white for the glass surrounding the benches in the center.
0:56
Removing the glass is as simple as applying a suction cup, pulling upward, and grabbing the
1:00
connector between each pane. The process moves fast—it takes just a few seconds per piece and,
1:06
if anything, it's limited by how fast the crews can put the pieces away in the cart.
1:10
While this occurs, cleaning crews move through the sections of seats on the two far ends of
1:15
the rink. These areas will entirely transform over the coming hours, so their cleaning is
1:20
prioritized over the rest of the arena so that work can begin. And they specifically
1:24
start on the west side since they’ll soon need a forklift, and the forklift can’t currently access
1:29
the rink—the slope on the Zamboni tunnel is too steep, so they need to remove the seats that are
1:33
currently covering the corner tunnel. In addition to cleaning, others work on other small details
1:38
to prep these seats for conversion—removing cabling, railings, and other small elements.
1:44
Within just 25 minutes of the buzzer going off, as the final few fans are still in the arena,
1:49
the last pieces of glass come down. Up until this point in the process,
1:53
the crews have taken advantage of the coarse ice created through twenty-minutes of third-period
1:57
professional hockey to provide traction as they work, but with the next stage of
2:01
the process involving covering the ice, it’s now time for the Zamboni to come out and resurface it.
2:06
After all, the ice is always there—from pre-season through playoffs, no matter if there’s a
2:11
basketball game or a concert, courts, stages, whatever is always built on top of the ice,
2:17
as unlike essentially every other element needed for any United Center event, laying down the ice
2:22
is a time-consuming process involving days of careful layering and methodical placement of
2:27
lines, logos, and advertisements. It’s just not practical to lay down new ice for each game. And
2:33
maintaining NHL-quality ice is also no easy feat, so as much as resurfacing the ice immediately is
2:39
about prepping it for its next use, it’s also about ensuring that it stays high-quality
2:43
even as an NBA game happens on top of it. As the Zamboni does its work, part of the
2:48
crew gets a brief break, but others continue work on the seating. This is one of the more complex
2:53
parts of the process as the entire geometry of the playing area changes from hockey to
2:58
basketball. An NBA court is less than half as long and almost half as wide as an NHL rink, meaning
3:04
there’s plenty more room for seating. In fact, all-in-all, 1,200 additional seats are installed
3:09
during the conversion. The main difference is that seating extends closer to the playing surface,
3:14
far past the hockey boards, but there are also other, subtler differences. In rink-mode,
3:19
the Zamboni needs access, which requires having a large tunnel on one end. In addition,
3:25
players access changes between sports—with hockey, tunnels extend directly to the benches
3:29
on one side of the arena, whereas in basketball there’s access via tunnels on all four corners,
3:35
both for players and for those sitting in courtside seats. So that’s all to say,
3:39
essentially the entire seating configuration near the floor changes between hockey and basketball.
3:44
To achieve this in a matter of hours, the area’s seating sits on telescopic platforms.
3:49
The individual seats fold down flat, then section by section retract automatically. Once in their
3:54
compact state, crews use a lifting platform to move them away from the wall—these essentially
4:00
operate like a hovercraft, shooting air at the ground to reduce the effective weight of these
4:04
massive seating sections so that the workers can push them around with simply their own strength.
4:09
This side, with seating extending further down, is for hockey, whereas the side closer to the wall is
4:14
for basketball as in the basketball configuration these seating sections only go down as far
4:19
as to the top of the boards, rather than the bottom of the boards, to allow for more seating
4:23
past the boards given the smaller court size. For now, the workers flip the seating sections around
4:28
so that the basketball side now faces the rink. As the Zamboni finishes up, a few other assorted
4:33
off-rink activities occur—a couple people work to remove the corner sections of boards, as these are
4:38
where the access tunnels will eventually be; a few others mop the floor previously covered
4:42
by the telescopic seating; while one person presses the button to automatically retract
4:46
the netting used to catch stray pucks. Additionally, others go and stage the next
4:51
round of materials. During hockey games, all the basketball components are stored in one
4:55
large room underneath one of the long sides of the arena. The room is always organized the exact same
5:01
way so that each cart is accessible when it’s needed—the glass carts, used first, are closest
5:07
to the door, whereas the pieces of the actual basketball court, needed last, are furthest.
5:12
With the Zamboni now done, crews bring out risers; some small seating sections; and rubber flooring.
5:17
One crew gets to work converting the benches where hockey players sit. They start with filling in the
5:22
bench access tunnels with platforms, then affixing seating on top of them. Each tunnel takes up the
5:28
space of sixteen seats, so considering how close the seats are to the action,
5:32
filling these in adds up to thousands of dollars of additional revenue. There’s
5:36
also space within what was the benches, so the crews also place risers and seats within them.
5:42
As this goes on, others quickly work to cover the rink in 530 different pieces of insulated
5:48
plywood flooring. Most of this is fairly straightforward—equally-sized rectangles
5:53
that fit together easily. Where it gets tricky is towards the corners. To account for the curve,
5:59
each piece is cut for its precise spot, and therefore placing any of the 530 pieces
6:04
incorrectly will throw off the whole process. The last piece is the trickiest—on this night,
6:11
it refuses to easily slot in, requiring the crew to remove some pieces and rework the placement
6:16
as the rest of the crew watches on, waiting to be able to get to the next step in the
6:20
conversion. But once in, to lock the flooring in place, assuring it doesn’t slip even a bit,
6:25
small spacers are hammered in around the edges. Now, this point in the process is where the next
6:31
steps sometimes diverge. While NHL hockey and NBA basketball represent the core of United Center’s
6:37
programming, the arena also hosts concerts, comedy shows, even the Democratic National Convention.
6:43
Most comedy shows and certain concerts use United Center’s in-house setup—using these materials,
6:48
they’re able to set up a variety of simple configurations. Larger concerts from bigger acts,
6:53
though, typically bring their own staging, so the United Center conversion crew gets the rink
6:57
converted to this point, then the tour’s staff takes it from there. This can lead to some long
7:02
nights. Not only do concerts last longer, but the load-out of the tour’s equipment often takes two
7:07
to four hours before the in-house crew can even start their conversion. And the timeline of when
7:13
a rink conversion needs to be done by isn’t the start of the next game, it’s actually around 10:00
7:17
AM when the visiting team is allowed to use the ice for practice. So this leads to some long-hours
7:22
and late nights for the crew, especially when the schedule leads to back to back to back
7:27
conversions. Things get even more complicated in playoff season as there’s often no knowing whether
7:32
a rink or court is going to be needed for a game until the previous game finishes. And there are
7:37
even some slight variations to the rink and court setups that they need to pay attention to. When an
7:42
NHL game is broadcast nationally, for example, the broadcaster brings in additional cameras,
7:47
and also setup an additional broadcasting position rinkside, which is why this glass sits here on the
7:52
glass cart on this particular night—it was taken out since it was a national broadcast night.
7:57
But this November conversion was, at least relatively, simple—the rink to
8:01
court transformation the crew is most used to. Next in the process is measuring—they use
8:07
tapes and chalk to mark out where the corner of the court should go. Considering it’s far
8:11
smaller than the rink, getting its location right is important to ensure the geometry of
8:15
the seating that will surround it works too. Then the court comes out. Unlike the rest of
8:21
the materials, the court itself is stored in a standalone, temperature-controlled room. After
8:26
all, it’s the most crucial, hardest-to-replace element of the basketball setup, and there’s
8:30
only one of them. Each piece is the same size, but it still must be assembled in an exact order due
8:35
to the lines, logos, and advertisements painted on top, so they’re each individually numbered.
8:41
Part of the crew lays out each piece in roughly the right place, while others follow behind and
8:45
deal with the precise placement, using a mallet to align the pieces as tightly as possible. And
8:50
precision is key—any slight misalignment with the first pieces will compound the further
8:55
they go on. A gap between flooring pieces is unacceptable for NBA play, so if that happens
9:01
they’ll have to go back and re-do their work. While this goes on, work continues on the
9:05
seating. Now rotated, the telescopic seating is extended out again, then these pieces of rubber
9:11
are placed in between each section so that there’s no gap. Unlike when in hockey mode,
9:15
the front of these seating sections now only go as low as the top of the boards, rather than the
9:20
bottom. The arena uses this additional height, and the shorter length of the basketball court, to fit
9:25
in additional rows of seating. Small sections are rolled out by hand to fit in the corners, but the
9:30
bulk of these rows is brought out by forklift and carefully placed in front of the boards. Once all
9:36
in place, these seating units too will extend out automatically all the way down to court level.
9:41
On the long sides of the court, risers are placed in front of the boards to provide a
9:45
slightly elevated sightline for the backmost row of courtside seats. These coveted seats are placed
9:50
one-by-one by hand, eventually fully surrounding the court. The team also brings in the tables
9:55
where league officials, TV announcers, broadcast staff, and other personnel sit during games,
10:00
as well as the digital advertising boards positioned in front of them.
10:04
Setting up the hoops is one of the last steps. First they flip the shot clock up into position,
10:10
affix its support wires to the backboard, then extend the stanchion up to its full height. From
10:15
there it’s all about calibration—assuring the hoop is level, the backboard is level, and that
10:20
the both are exactly where they’re supposed to be relative to the court below. There’s also a quick
10:24
check that the rim hinges down under pressure as it’s supposed to during a slam dunk, but if not,
10:29
there’s always the backup hoop in the storage room that they can swap in at a moment’s notice.
10:34
At this point, only small, finishing touches remain—dealing with the last few bits of wiring,
10:39
putting the last few seats in place, and performing final inspections. With that,
10:43
the conversion crew is done. The clock just hit midnight, meaning the entire process,
10:48
from the first panes of glass coming off to the last seat getting positioned in place,
10:52
took almost exactly two hours and thirty minutes. It’s an incredible feat, and they’ll do it all
10:58
over again the next night. After the Bulls game they’re converting the arena into a stage setup
11:03
for a comedy show, then two nights later the rink will return for the Blackhawks,
11:07
followed by another overnight conversion to court for the Bulls. Across November alone, they’ll
11:12
convert the arena twenty-one times, working tirelessly to bring Chicago its entertainment,
11:18
no matter which surface it requires. As you can possibly tell, we actually filmed
11:24
this video in-person at United Center. This was a really great opportunity that not only allowed us
11:29
to get this footage, but also all the information that has allowed us to make, to my knowledge,
11:33
the most detailed video on how arena conversion works on YouTube. Of course, flying to Chicago and
11:39
filming this was expensive, so I think this video is also a testament to the benefits of injecting
11:44
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