On Wednesday night at 10:45 p.m., men’s basketball head coach Bo Ryan and his team cut down the net in celebration of its first Big Ten championship since 1947. As the Badgers left the floor, another team rushed on the court to do its job. For Dan Wyatt and the Kohl Center conversion crew, a long night had only just begun.
Dan Wyatt is the head of floor operations at the Kohl Center. He is also in charge of the football practice fields, soccer field, and the softball diamonds for the UW Athletic Department. During the winter, however, all of his efforts are concentrated on converting the Kohl Center from the basketball setup to the hockey configuration.
“The process is mass chaos,” Wyatt said. “But it’s an organized chaos.”
As soon as the floor is cleared, Wyatt and his crew — consisting of 50 to 60 skilled workers and students — begin to clear the bench area and remove the foldable seating at both ends of the floor and in the first four rows behind the announcer’s and press tables. All of these chairs are stacked and placed in storage in the tunnels of the Kohl Center. Then, the risers at the ends of the floor are retracted in order to make room for the larger size of the hockey rink.
While this is going on, the basketball hoops are lowered and removed from the floor. “The hoop folds down so we can store it without taking up much room,” Wyatt said.
The apparatus itself weighs 600 pounds, and it takes four crew members to pull it off the floor. Once the hoops are taken off, the announcer’s table and press table are dismantled. Along with taking apart the consoles, all of the cables, wires, and television monitors that are set up for the press during the game need to be disconnected and wound up. Once this is done, the tables are taken apart and off the wood floor — which is then completely empty.
At 11:35 p.m., the removal of the basketball floor begins. Pieces of cardboard are placed on top of the wood so they are not scratched during the process. The 4-by-8 slabs are then lifted and put on carts one by one so they remain in order.
“We do that so it doesn’t look like a jigsaw puzzle the next time we lay it down,” explained Wyatt.
Beneath the basketball hardwood are gray tiles that make up what is called the “polar floor. The polar floor is made of plastic and foam and it is laid down on top of the ice in order to keep it frozen. As soon as the polar floor is removed, a generator at the Kohl Center keeps the rink frozen with a series of pipes running underneath the ice. A computer system ensures that the surface remains in its frozen state then controls the temperature of the ice automatically.
At 12:30 a.m., the polar floor is being removed while crew members begin to install the penalty boxes and the player benches. The sections of the bench are numbered and are locked into place underneath the floor. Boards for the hockey rink are installed behind the goals. The boards have interlocking pieces that strengthen them and make them hold up against contact during the game. Poles that hold in the sections of glass around the rink are installed. By 1 a.m., the boards are in place around the entire ice surface.
Once the boards are set up, the glass partitions can be slid into place between the poles in the sides of the boards. “This process actually moves fairly quickly,” Wyatt said. As the bench area is completed and the last of the polar floor is lifted off the ice surface, the final pane of glass is set in place. The Kohl Center transformation is complete, except for the once-over of the ice with the zamboni.
The Zamboni goes on the ice at 2:05 in the morning, just over three hours after Wyatt and his crew began the conversion. Wyatt’s hectic night has concluded.
“Nobody ever realizes how much work goes on here behind the scenes,” Wyatt said. “It is actually a very big process.”
While the Badger basketball team brought down the house Wednesday night, it was Dan Wyatt who closed it up early Thursday morning.
