Curling Clubs, Municipal and University Hockey Arenas and major film studios all know who to call for a professional-looking ice surface - they choose ICECO ice painting service.

In addition to our work at many municipal and privately-run ice rinks and curling clubs, we are proud to have our work on display in such feature films as:

Walt Disney Film "Ice Princess"
Warner Bros. Film "The Dan Jansen Story"
Warner Bros. Film "The Blizzard"

Read below how ICECO helped the SuperBowl when they needed a hockey rink to look like a football field!

From Center Ice to Center Field:
ICECO Advanced Arena Products scores touchdown at SuperBowl XL

How do you transform a football field into an ice skating rink? Organizers of an exclusive event at Super Bowl XL in downtown Detroit bet their odds that ICECO Advanced Arena Products could “tackle” this “Super Bowl Challenge”.

The mission: construct a miniature skating rink resembling an actual NFL football field. This “Super Rink”, located near Ford Field, would serve as the centerpiece of a Super Bowl XL Tailgate Party event for NFL team owners and their invited guests. Performing on a stage located at the end of the rink would be 80’s singing sensation Lionel Ritchie.

But, what was the game plan? Who could take a blank ice surface and convert it into an NFL football field, complete with yard line markings, end zone logos and center field logos?

It was an easy choice for the organizers. Their pick for MVP was ICECO Advanced Arena Products, a supplier of ice paints and quality logo stencil patterns to a worldwide customer base.

Founded in 1990, ICECO is owned and operated by Brian Van Sickle, who draws on more than 25 years of experience in ice making technology. Van Sickle has been directly involved with ice rink installation and staff training for the AHL, OHL, WPHL, ECAC and many other college and university facilities throughout North America.

In addition to Van Sickle’s experience, ICECO Advanced Arena Products has state of the art logo production facilities – completely outfitted with the latest in hi-tech logo pattern equipment and manned by a dedicated staff that takes great pride in their work.

This combination of technology and experience made ICECO uniquely qualified to perform an extreme gridiron makeover!

The first step – the party planners submitted their diagram of the “field” to ICECO. The artwork showed a football field dominated with blue and red colors – colors more typically associated with hockey line markings than football!

But, in NFL football, these colors have added significance - red represents the American Football Conference (AFC) while blue signifies the National Football Conference (NFC) of the NFL. These 2 colors come together in the Super Bowl XL logo, which the organizer’s diagram placed directly at center ice (center field?).

Other logos were located in the end zones and on either side of the center ice logo. The rink/field was to have full line markings – this meant over 350 hash marks and 19 separate yard lines – all within a mini skating rink approximately 1/3 the size of the actual Super Bowl XL field!

In addition to these requirements, the organizers had one more request – they wanted to limit the use of ice paint on the skating surface. This meant no white paint (the typical base coat of any arena rink) and paper lines for all hash and yard line markings. Ice paint was to be used for only logo painting and painting of the yard line numbers. This use of paper would a result in a cleaner disposal procedure once the rink was dismantled – an important consideration for a rink located directly in downtown Detroit!

The countdown started and ICECO quickly went to work on advance preparations for the rink. Using the artwork provided by the party planners, ICECO produced logo stencil patterns – 8 separate patterns in total. The largest pattern was the Super Bowl XL center field logo. Another logo commemorated Super Bowl’s 40th Anniversary. Logos were located in both end zones and other patterns were created for each of the yard line numbers. All patterns were created directly to scale, as calculated by ICECO’s logo department.

Next, the paper lines were cut to size – 8”x 1” for the hash marks, 39 ft x 1” for the yard lines. All of the work had to be done prior to ICECO’s arrival at the rink, since there would be little time for on site preparation.

The base coat of white paper rolls and large blue rolls for the background of the end zones were also readied for application.

A quick-thinking ICECO employee also created a special wooden template for accurate spacing of the hash marks between each yard line. This would later prove to be an extremely useful tool for speedy on-ice application of the over 350 paper line hash marks!

Armed with logo templates, custom color ice paint, paper lines and base coat rolls as well as detailed rink schematics created by ICECO staff, ICECO employees arrived in Detroit, ready for the kickoff of the creation of the Super Bowl XL rink.

When ICECO arrived in Detroit, the organizers were in the early stages of building the rink floor and connecting the refrigeration system. So, ICECO assisted in building the ice for the mini-rink. At one point, ICECO employees walked 14 blocks through downtown Detroit with a wheelbarrow to collect “snow” from an outdoor rink located at Campus Martius. This snow would be packed in around the refrigeration plates to build up the rink base.

Brian Van Sickle of ICECO elaborates: “As we made our way back to the Super Bowl rink with our snow, we caught the attention of curious onlookers, who kept dipping their hands into our wheelbarrow. They were actually taking the snow and making snowballs to throw at one another! We even had the attention of Detroit’s finest, as an officer politely asked why we were walking downtown with a wheelbarrow full of snow! He seemed amused at our response and wished us well”.

Once the base was ready, the game was on – only 22 hours left on the time clock to complete the transformation of the ice to a football field/skating rink! There was no room in this match to go into overtime!

“First Down”: the white paper rolls and blue end zone paper were applied. Several thin layers of ice were then built on top of this base. Then the paper yard lines and hash marks were applied. All paper lines were given a fine misting of hot water, to preserve their color.

Then it was time to apply the logo stencil patterns to the ice. Patterns were fixed to the ice and blue pounce chalk was lightly applied to the surface. The chalk penetrated the fine perforations in the logo stencil, leaving behind a clear outline of the logo when the pattern was removed. The chalk outline was lightly misted to fix it to the ice surface. Brian Van Sickle of ICECO says “ICECO uses the latest in logo pattern technology to produce outstanding logo stencil patterns – the chalk lines become solid outlines on the ice – it is just like painting in a coloring book!”.

The men worked diligently to paint all of the logos. When the painting was complete, many layers of ice were built to seal in the logos and protect the ice surface.

In the end, ICECO Advanced Arena Products delivered a championship rink “Trades people came from all around downtown Detroit just to come and take a look at the completed Super Bowl rink…” says Van Sickle, “…they even stopped to shake our hands and congratulate us on a job well done”.

Event organizers were pleased with their frozen gridiron as well – they knew that they could count on ICECO Advanced Arena Products to be part of their winning team.

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