Making the Texas Stars' Ice Rink

Texas Stars hockey fans are passionate about their team. They know the history, stats, and projected career path of every player on the roster long before the first puck is dropped on the ice.  But what do they know about the ice on which the puck dropped?  This photoessay  may add to their extensive knowledge. 

I arrived at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park at 8:00 am on Labor Day.  I met a crew of a dozen and a half workers who have been up all night disassembling the stage from the previous night’s concert, and beginning work on building the ice rink.  

I met with Jack Cooper.  Jack opened the H-E-B Center ice rink and worked there for eight years.  He later moved to Dallas to work for the Dallas Stars where he is now responsible for 16 rinks for the ownership group, and is in the process of building two more.    

After cleaning up from the night before, the first task was to install the plexiglass that circled the rink. While hockey won’t be play for another month, the plexiglass is needed to help contain the cold air over the ice. 

Next, the rink floor is cleaned.  Debris is loosened with sharpened blades and collected with industrial floor cleaners, first using water.  The floor is washed a second time with a water/vinegar mixture to clean the pores of the concrete.

While work was proceeding on the plexiglass, a second, smaller team worked to startup the 215-ton chiller.  This one chiller is large enough to cool greater than 50 homes at the peak of summer’s heat.  This chiller’s only job, however, was to freeze the concrete floor of the rink to make the ice.  The chiller had been offline since the end of the last hockey season, but has received periodic preventive maintenance.  

The floor of the ice rink is distinct from the floor of the arena.  A rubber casket separates the two, with the floor of the ice rink being a floating, two-foot thick, oval island.  The first 14 inches of the floating floor is sand.   Embedded in the sand is a circuit of one-inch plastic pipes arranged on two-foot centers called the “warm loop.”  The warm loop recovers heat from the chiller and circulates water to prevent the sand from freezing.  Freezing of the sand layer could create frost heaves that would bow the surface of the floor.  A vapor barrier is laid over the warm loop, followed by insulation and additional vapor barrier.  

The upper-most layer of the floor is concrete, called the “cold floor,” in which the “cold loop” is contained.  The cold loop is a circuit of one-inch diameter plastic pipes aligned on three-inch centers.  The cold loop circulates water that freezes the floor, which in turn freezes water applied to the floor. 

A brine water solution circulates through the cold loop.  The brine water, like salt water, lowers the freezing temperature of the water, allowing the concrete floor to freeze before the brine water does.  The chiller reduces the temperature of the water to 8 degrees F.  Water circulates through the cold loop, chills the floor, and returns at a temperature of 11 degrees F, during normal operation.  

The immediate goal is to pull as many degrees of heat out of the floor before the building of the ice “sheet” can begin. The cold loop operates overnight to bring the temperature of the concrete to 17 degrees F. 

The first step in building the sheet is the installation of a masking at the joint of the cold floor and the side boards.  The masking prevents water from seeping under the boards, freezing, and expanding, which could cause damage to the boards.  

Water is applied to the floor as a fine spray from a 120-gallon tank mounted on a four-wheel cart called the “sled.”  The sled has arms with nozzles that swing out, giving a total reach of approximately 12 feet.  The sled is manually pulled across the rink floor to uniformly apply about 100 to 110 gallons of water.  The water freezes immediately because the floor is very cold and the spray layer is very thin.  It takes about five minutes to cover the entire rink floor, after which the tank is refilled and the process is repeated.  

The water used to make the ice is treated with a reverse osmosis process which removes ultrafine particulates by filtering it under high pressure through a semi-permeable.  The water is then heated to near-boiling to drive off dissolved gases to produce ice that is crystal clear. 

The entire process to build a two-inch thick sheet of ice takes one week.  The first day will apply five to six coats of clear water that bonds the water to the concrete.  This is followed by three coats of white paint to produce ice that looks to be solid white.  

The white paint is made by adding four bags of white powder to the 120-gallon tank on the sled and mixing with a recirculating pump until the powder if fully dissolved.  Three coats of white paint are then applied to the floor using the sled.  The thickness of the ice now is approximately 1/16th of an inch.  

After the layers of white paint have frozen, the next step is to paint the red line, blue lines, goal lines, faceoff circles and logos on to the ice.  The material used for the paint is essentially a food-grade, water-based chalk.  

Before the painting can begin, a grid is created across the rink in an exercise of geometric precision. Permanent landmarks on the floor of the rink (e.g., the tubes where the net posts) and the side boards (e.g., red line, blue lines, and goal lines) are the starting points. 

The first step draws a line that bisects the rink length-wise, measured from the midpoint of the net post tubes at each end of the arena through the center ice.  White yarn is used for this line because it is not intended to be invisible.  Red yarn is used for the goal lines and red line, and blue yarn for the blue lines.  Water is hand strayed over the yarn to freeze it into place.   Measurements from everything painted on to the ice is made relative to these benchmarks.  The yarn remains in place until the ice is scraped from the rink at season’s end.  

Chalk outlines of the logos are applied using perforated stencils. Chalk is swept over perforations in the stencil to outline the pattern.  The patterns are then filled in, like a giant paint by numbers painting.  Texas Stars fans were invited to assist with the painting and were treated to hot drinks, warm pizza and knee cushions. 

Major mistakes in painting are covered with white paint.  Minor mistakes are not noticeable after two inches of ice covers the paint and the ice has been skated upon. 

Once the painting is completed, the thickness of the ice is built up to one inch using about 100 passes of sled and using approximately 12,000 gallons.  Once a thickness of one inch is reached, the ice can withstand the penetration of the studded tires of the Zamboni, which is then use to build the ice to a total thickness of about two inches.  

While there is a great deal of skill is required to build a quality sheet of ice, there are many  engineering tools used to help insure the ice quality.  

An important measure of the ice quality are the temperatures of the out-bound (8 degrees F) and return (11 degrees F) brine water solution.  Temperatures outside that range indicate the ice is too cold or too warm. 

The ideal temperature of the ice ranges from 18 to 21 degrees F, depending on where in the ice’s cross section the temperature is measured.  There are two sets of temperature sensors at the rink: a thermocouple is installed in the concrete and an infrared sensor is positioned in the catwalk above the sheet.  

In addition, a topographic map of the cold floor has been surveyed.  Tiny holes are drilled in the ice to identify areas where the ice is too thin, or too thick. 


These measures combined will help produce a high-quality ice sheet and aid in the team’s  success.  The rest is up to the players and the coaches.  

September 6, 2024

About the Author

Andy Nietupski founded TTL Sport Media in 2015 after a corporate career of business start-ups and turn-arounds.  TTLSports Media helps sports organizations optimize their business results using the latest digital sales and marketing techniques.  TTL Sports Media publishes thousands of pieces of content annually and curates a catalog of more than 175,000 items on behalf of its client’s interests. 

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