From pucks to trucks

Managing Canada Life Centre’s complex conversions

Whether on ice, on stage, or atop mounds of dirt, each event Canada Life Centre hosts requires hours and hours of literal heavy lifting behind the scenes.

A recent 10-day stretch saw Canada Life Centre transform four times over, starting with the NHL-ready Winnipeg Jets ice surface and seating configuration on Feb. 4, hosting The Offspring less than 24 hours later and then accomplishing one of the arena’s most intensive conversions to create the specialized rugged terrain for the Ram Motorsports Spectacular before hosting another concert and then again revealing cool, clean ice for the Manitoba Moose vs. Calgary Wranglers puck drop Feb. 14.

With a complex schedule of details, deliveries and tasks, and sometimes less than a 24-hour turnaround between events, conversions begin quickly after the end of another show. The effort involved in a motorsports conversion, in particular, is as monstrous as the trucks themselves with precision, timing and safety a key focus as skilled conversion crews work to prepare for showtime:

• Hockey dasher boards and approximately 800 seats are removed
• Bleachers are retracted to create an additional 3,000 square feet of floor space
• An insulated foam-filled floor covering – used to protect the ice for all non-hockey events – is installed
• 20,000 square feet of heavy-duty poly plastic and two layers of 3/4-inch plywood with staggered joints are laid out to further protect the ice from the weight and elements of a motorsports show
• 90 semi truckloads – the equivalent of 2,000 tons – of dirt is hauled onto the floor overnight to avoid street traffic before skilled operators shape and build ramps and jumps
• Monster trucks and crush cars arrive in the loading dock
• Event disassembly begins as soon as one hour after the last show
• Dirt removal takes 10 hours alone before the protective flooring is pulled up, hockey dashers are reinstalled and bleachers pulled out
• A monstrous effort by Housekeeping gets the whole venue back in spic and span condition

Even when ice is not part of the show, its quality remains top of mind for Canada Life Centre’s ice engineers who continued to monitoring building conditions and event level activities to maintain and protect the ice.

From Housekeeping to Facilities Operations and conversion crews, many skilled teams keep Canada Life Centre running all season long, and especially during its busiest weeks.