Busy day at the RBC Center

The Hurricanes share their arena with the NC State Men's basketball team. A couple of times a season, there will be a basketball/hockey twi-night doubleheader. Today is one of those days. NC State finished their basketball game at about 4:45 and the Canes game starts at 7:00. The ice needs to be ready well in advance of that for the skatearound.

The changeover crew busts their collective butt to pull up the basketball floor, reconfigure the lower seating bowl, remove the buffer between the ice and the basketball floor, reinstall the dasher boards and the glass, put up the protective netting, then adjust the temperature of the building. Unless I'm terribly mistaken, the temperature is maintained at 68 degrees for a basketball game and 63 degrees for a hockey game. There are other details too, but this is a lot to accomplish in less than two hours. I think they once did the whole thing in under 45 minutes.

I don't want to think about the nightmare that the parking lot becomes while they empty it and refill it in quick fashion.

Right now, I'm keeping an eye on the RBC Center webcam, which updates once every 60 seconds. It's pretty enthralling.