Shinny Interviews...
A Piece of Basketball Flooring from the Pepsi Center
Published in April 2001 -  Diane Lau

On March 19, there was a Colorado Avalanche game scheduled for 1:00 p.m. at the Pepsi Center, to be followed by an 8:00 p.m. Denver Nuggets game. This gave Nick Frasier and the rest of his conversion crew—increased from 22 to 45 for the special occasion—2 ½ hours maximum to change the venue from hockey to basketball. They accomplished their task in just over 2 hours.

 

Shinny hooked up with an eyewitness to the record-setting festivities, a panel of basketball flooring who calls himself Woodrow…
 
Q: Woodrow, welcome.

A: Okay, let’s get it over with.

Q: Get what over with?

A: Everyone knows whenever you have an appearance of a representative of some other pro sport on Hockey Snacks, it’s just so you can demonstrate how that sport is supposedly inferior to hockey. You’ve done it to golf, you’ve done it to football, you’ve done it to baseball.

Q: Not intentionally…if people draw that conclusion, well, it doesn’t surprise us, but—

A: A lot of people like basketball, so be gentle.

Q: Fair enough. Why don’t you tell us about the Big Conversion. What did it all entail?

A: Well, we’d never tried it so fast before…the crew did two dress rehearsals just to make sure we could pull it off in the allotted time. You can imagine how nervous we all were when the score was still tied late in the third. A lot of people say Joe Sakic should be MVP this year, but I say his most heroic act was putting the puck in the net and saving us all from overtime.

Q: An exciting ending all right. But you know what’s interesting? I’ve found when you watch basketball that nothing really matters until the last five minutes of the game. Either someone gets an insurmountable lead, or if it’s close, you’re going to have all that diddling around at the end—

A: Now it begins.

Q: Sorry, sorry! So what had to be accomplished in the 2 ½ hours?

A: Well, apart from our crew, of course the whole arena had to be cleaned up. That’s four levels of concourses with all their concessions and bathrooms. And 95 suites, each one like a hotel room with a bathroom and bar. There were 125 people to do that stuff alone. Just think of all those toilets…

Q: Ow, I had a sudden feeling of being in Carolina…

A: Personally, I think their logo looks a lot more like a weather system symbol. Like they’re a team of meteorologists, you know what I mean?

Q: Yeah, I can see it. And I guess that’s sort of what it’s going for, the storm thing…

A: I’ve thought about sending Willard Scott a Carolina jersey.

Q: That reminds me, Official Snacks Hanger-On Martha reported to us the other day a sighting of a couple hundred drastically reduced Hurricanes jerseys at a Chicago-area store.

A: Good grief, how’d they get to Chicago, did they blow there?

Q: Intensely. But we digress.

A: True. I’ll take some credit for that, I’m trying to distract you from potential basketball bashing.

Q: Understandable. So what did your crew of 45 have to do?

A: Well, once the Zambonis cleared the ice, they take out the boards—126 pieces of glass—using giant suction cups and a forklift.

Q: Just like we use at Hockey House to get our large cat Bunzor to the vet. Just kidding.

A: They put 456 sheets of fiberglass on the floor so me and my buddies don’t get too cold.

Q: Really, so you don’t get too cold?

A: It’s really hard to play if the floor is shaking, just ask the folks in Seattle. And if you were laying around for hours on bare ice—

Q: —sounds like the cumulative career of Eric Lindros—

A: —what do you think you would do?

Q: Shake like Bunzor on the way to the vet. Okay, so then they lay down you floor boards?

A: Right, and we’re 4 foot by 4 or 4 foot by 8, absolutely splendid pieces of polished maple.

Q: Canadian maple, I hope—those wondrous trees that bring flavor to Maple Frosted Wheaties and the frosting on maple BeaverTails…

A: Has anyone told you the obsession with food around here is getting a little scary?

Q: Constantly. But it has to be a bit tricky fitting you all together properly, like a big jigsaw puzzle.

A: It certainly is. It’s much quicker taking us out, when you get ready for hockey. But the hockey game had to come first, there would be no way to get the ice into proper form in time if the b-ball came first.

Q: Okay, Woodrow, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Tell us truthfully, aren’t you a bit jealous of the ice? Seeing as it gets to be glided upon, and have 100 mph slapshots driven across it, and you have to settle for the stomping of really large sneakers and the mundane bouncing of balls?

A: Sigh.

Q: I mean, wouldn’t you like to be there when Patrick Roy is talking to his goalposts? No one ever talked to a free throw line.

A: Goalposts aren’t on the ice. It’s not a fair analogy. No one talks to the faceoff circle.

Q: Carbonneau always used to spit on the faceoff circle for luck.

A: I can honestly say I never envied the ice that.

Q: Point well taken.

A: I do kind of wish the Zambonis drove around on us. We do get repolished from time to time, but not by a machine that cool.

Q: But there’s a upside for you too…at least basketball floors don’t have to worry about being whacked at with sticks or scraped with blades…no, you guys never get hit with anything harder than a size 24 shoe or Patrick Ewing’s butt. Not really too much challenge there I guess…

A: Hey, you’d be surprised how hard Patrick Ewing’s butt is!

Q: Bet it doesn’t feel like a frustrated whack from Dominic Hasek’s stick!

A: Well, you’d have to be a sicko to be in the mood for that!

Q: That’s not what I—ANYWAY, there’s no debating the point that the ice is the toughest playing surface in pro sports, but that’s not your fault.

A: And there’s no debating either how many people watch, say, the NCAA basketball tournament compared to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Q: Some things in the world are just inexplicable.

A: Which is what I say to people who ask me what the deal is with Hockey Snacks.

Q: This seems like a good time to close the interview.

A: I "wooden" blame you a bit.