Between games, arena hustles

Shift from hoops to hockey a blur

RALEIGH -- Before N.C. State's band had finished playing the school's alma mater Saturday afternoon, Dave Olsen's Changeover Crew was taking down folding chairs in the south end of the RBC Center.

Olsen's team had a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game to get ready for three hours later, a basketball court to dismantle, and ice to clear off.

Where teenagers had dribbled basketballs Saturday afternoon, 30-year-old Canadians would slap at pucks Saturday night.

The Wolfpack had lost a good game to Boston College. The Hurricanes hoped to reverse their recent skid on the ice.

Olsen, the arena's general manager, needed to convert the venue in less than two hours and beat the changeover record of 1 hour, 45 minutes if he could. About 50 staffers made it happen.

"It's not just another day at the arena," Olsen said before the transformation. "Between a basketball game and a hockey game, this whole building is going to turn itself inside out."

When Olsen's staff did it last year in record time, he told them: "The good news is, you did it. The bad news is, you did it."

Then completion in an hour and 45 minutes became their goal, along with two others: safety and no damage to the materials. Last year, a glass panel fell and shattered, and the cleanup delayed the changeover.

"You don't want to be going at it so crazy that you're not paying attention and somebody gets hurt," Olsen said.

Three times this season, the Hurricanes and the Wolfpack men play at the Raleigh arena the same day. Saturday was the first. The next is Jan. 20.

Like the Wolfpack and the Hurricanes, the RBC crew wanted to improve its record.

Which is why Olsen -- dressed in jeans and a black, long-sleeved State T-shirt -- was yanking down table skirts at 4 p.m., just minutes after State's loss. Soon he was shoving chair carts into a cavernous storage room under the arena's lower-level seats.

It's why the arena's marketing coordinator, Crystal Pace, was cheerfully cleaning luxury suites.

And it's why operations manager Dan McGowan flung basketball stat sheets off press tables, folded them up, and frantically rolled up floor mats as he helped lead the basketball facility's aerobic deconstruction.

"The hardest part is keeping everybody organized amid the chaos," McGowan said during the briefest of breaks. "I don't want to get done too fast -- or we'll have more of these next year."

But his hustle belied his claim.

When two men putting up Plexiglass had trouble getting an aluminum stanchion to slide into its slot in the dasher boards, McGowan came over to fix it. After trying to wiggle the stanchion into place, he finally had to take off the dasher cover and guide the pole into place.

As McGowan rushed off to his next challenge, he shook his head. The stanchion work had taken precious minutes.

Overhead, the center scoreboard counted down the changeover time.

Meanwhile, throughout the 770,000-square-foot building, other workers clean seats, suites, floors, concourses and rest rooms. Food and drinks are restocked. Out come the beer, wine and booze, which aren't sold at college games. Trash gets picked up outside.

"It's not just what happens on the floor," Olsen said. "Just about every inch of the building goes through a transformation. It's a monumental task in the short time we have to do it."

Down came the basketball goals and shot clocks. Away went the scorer's table and end-zone chairs.

Up went the Plexiglass and nets around the hidden ice rink.

Up came the basketball floor, unbolted, pried apart and carefully stacked piece by piece for storage until the next hoops game.

At 5 p.m., the arena horn sounded. "OK, guys, that's an hour!" Olsen shouted. "Let's go!"

Three minutes later, workers started pulling up the gray-brown plastic subflooring, revealing the Hurricanes' hidden ice, which it insulates during basketball games, concerts, even truck shows.

"Pretty cool," Pace said. "Let there be ice!"

Suddenly, with the appearance of the ice, the RBC Center looked like a hockey arena. Soon it would receive a smooth new coat of ice.

By 5:15, concourse vendors were readying beer and food. The first Hurricanes fans were tailgating in the springlike weather, and kids were playing street hockey outside.

A few minutes later, the arena's transformation was complete, without injuries or broken glass. The Changeover Crew had done its work in a new record time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

"That's pretty darn good," Olsen said with a chuckle. "It went well. I've got some sore thighs, but I'll work through it.

"Game on."