Ice man bringeth: Rink guru readies Nationals Park for Winter Classic

Mostly sunny was a problem. Worse was a high of 57 degrees.

When ice guru Dan Craig stepped onto the sidewalk just beyond the center field fence at Nationals Park two weeks ago, deciding how to counter the weather had begun.

Behind Mr. Craig was a 53-foot trailer and truck with 300 tons of refrigeration. Washington Capitals marksman Alex Ovechkin and Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews were painted on the side. The time, 1 p.m., and date, Jan. 1, of the Winter Classic at Nationals Park were also splashed on the 22-wheel trailer hauled by an Oakville, Ontario, truck.

Conversion of Nationals Park from a baseball home to a hockey spectacle involved advanced technology and baseline items like tap water, and the next five days would be crucial. Mr. Craig’s ice crew of 12, which includes a friend from high school, would begin right away. The trailer was moved and powered on the next day. Laying pipes in the middle of the park on top of the underlay was among the first steps. Framework for a hockey rink appeared by the end of the week.

Mr. Craig, the National Hockey League’s senior director of facilities, looks as his bio would suggest. Bearded and with a face etched by the cold of Canadian winters, Mr. Craig is responsible for the ice across the NHL. Since the first Winter Classic in 2008, he’s been managing varying conditions for the event. Last year, he produced a rink in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when it was 13 degrees at puck drop. He also put together an outdoor rink in Los Angeles for the NHL Stadium Series. It was 63 degrees at Dodgers Stadium for that game.

At Nationals Park he needed to learn how the park played. Where did the sun hit? Did the wind cut through the city and in from the outfield? Or did it swirl more? While the crew toiled on the field, Mr. Craig took note of natural habits. Maintaining a consistent ice surface, preferably at 22 degrees, means grappling with inconsistent weather.

“Each stadium that we go into is different,” Mr. Craig said. “What you try to do is find out the personality of the facility itself.”

He’s been massaging ice for decades. First out in the yard in Jasper, Alberta, when he would take late-night peeks out the window to see if Mother Nature was fulfilling her assignment. Eventually, Mr. Craig became operations supervisor at Northlands Park in Edmonton, then joined the Oilers.

For Mr. Craig, ice is filled with nuance. It’s not something produced from running tap water into a plastic tray, then jamming it into the kitchen freezer. The variances in ice came into focus for him following a mid-1970s discussion with former figure skating champion Donald Jackson.

Mr. Jackson won the 1962 World Figure Skating Championships after landing the first triple Lutz in international competition. After talking with Mr. Jackson, Mr. Craig realized how different an ice sheet needed to be for figure skating, curling or hockey.

“Everything clicked at that point,” Mr. Craig said.

The priority for NHL players is belief and glide. Mr. Craig said they want to feel “smooth” under their skates. They also need to be able to believe in decisions that lead to hard stops or crisp turns. If they don’t think the ice is right, Mr. Craig feels he can see it. Watching obsessively on television or in person, Mr. Craig can notice subtleties that alarm him if something is not right.

“I will watch their feet, I will watch the puck, I will watch the game totally differently than anybody else watches it,” Mr. Craig said. “You can ask a player how it was, and they’ll say it was fine. I’ll watch and say, ’OK, that’s not even close to my caliber. We need to step up, do maintenance work on this sheet of ice.’ We make sure we deal with it.”

John Turnour usually is measuring, tinkering and molding the playing surface in Nationals Park. Since 2010, Mr. Turnour, the Nationals’ head groundskeeper, has manicured blades of grass on the 2.2 acres of field inside the baseball venue. When he heard the Winter Classic was coming to the District, he said he was excited. Hockey is not his favorite sport — baseball is the obvious choice there — but he was engaged by the uniqueness of the event.

It also changed his schedule. Usually in December, the field is in hibernation. Mr. Turnour’s crew will fix damage from the baseball season in October and November, then return to the field in February for further upkeep. Having an ice rink along with a subfloor, decking board and aluminum trays designed to control up to 3,000 gallons of glycol coolant on top of the middle of the infield caused an alternate approach.

“We kind of scaled back everything we do fixing the field,” Mr. Turnour said.

Knowing the aesthetics of the field will be trampled, the field will be re-grassed in February. The Nationals will also be looking for any possible damage to drainage or irrigation lines. No one has played a hockey game on top of second base before, so the club is not sure what damage may occur.

Until then, Mr. Craig will be monitoring. An application on his phone tells him the surface temperature of the 1.5 to 1.75 inches of ice at any time. They will place a special focus on lines and logos. Glare and puddling are game day concerns if the sun is out, which it is expected to be. A projected high temperature of 37 degrees should provide an assist to the surface.

The truck is the center of the ice making. It carries more refrigeration than Verizon Center holds, pumping coolant through hoses and into aluminum trays. Once the boards are up, water is added slowly with spray wands, and the rink is built by a repetitive delivery of mist. Each inch of ice thickness requires approximately 10,000 gallons of water.

When the puck drops Thursday, Mr. Craig will be thrilled and paranoid. He’ll watch for the imperfections that concern him about every ice sheet he puts together. He and Rob Block, a high school pal from Jasper who is a mechanic on the ice crew, will smile when there is a break that allows for consideration of their livelihood.

“We still pinch each other,” Mr. Craig said.

When the game finishes, boards will be pulled apart. The refrigeration trailer, one of two on the planet, will be shut down. Hoses, trays and the faux Capitol building in center field will be removed. Mr. Turnour will return to his grass. Mr. Craig will chase more ice.