It’s an All-Staff Collaboration as the Eagles Paint Their Ice for the Season

The ice is in, the paint is down, and Eagles hockey is right around the corner.

Crews and staff have been hard at work the last two days putting the ice in at the Budweiser Events Center, and excitement is racking up for the start of the season.

The Colorado Eagles will be skating into their first game against the San Jose Barracuda on Saturday, Oct. 9 at 6 p.m. After the 2020 season left fans out of the arena, the energy will be buzzing this year with Budweiser allowing 100% fan capacity.

The excitement for the season has been growing for a while, especially with roster moves and resigning the coaching staff. But, it starts to feel real once that ice is down.

The first layer of ice started going down on Wednesday, Sept. 15. But Thursday was where the full picture really started to come together.

Now, I don't know how much people know about the process of painting, that's right painting, an ice rink. I, for one, had no idea how it worked until I saw it myself.

Stocked with stencils, measuring tape, and paint, pretty much the entire Eagles front office, social, and production staff put on their jackets and get to work. It's an all-hands-on-deck operation, and a great way to really start kicking off the season with the entire staff involved.

Each sponsor logo and ice logo, even the center ice Eagles logo, all have their own stencils that get rolled out.

Then, once the powder is set into the stencil to give the outline, the guide gets pulled and everything is hand painted.

Some equipped with brushes and others with handheld rollers, the crew then takes to the ice to fill it all in!

Once the painting is done (usually over the course of just one day), they will let it sit, and then put one more layer of ice over the top. From there, players will have the honor of "cracking" the ice. This is where they get to strap on their skates and basically break in the rink!

I will say, once you see the paint on the ice, it's hard not to hear the distant buzz of a rumbling hockey crowd.

Single-game tickets for the Colorado Eagles are currently on sale now, so grab them while you can!