Ice problems plague new arena

COLUMBUS - When The Ohio State University started the construction of the Jerome Schottenstein Center last year, the idea was to give Ohio State a state-of-the-art basketball and hockey facility to enter the 21st-Century.

To accomplish the task of building Value City Arena, Ohio State employed more than 300 craftsmen and poured more than 1,000 yards of concrete. The Buckeyes even designed terrazo floorscapes on the rotundas of each of the four levels.

Ohio State paid a pretty penny for all of these perks - $10.5 billion of them in fact. While the $ 105 million facility is nothing like the CCHA has ever seen, one wonders if the Ohio State community ran out of money during the construction process.

With all the seats, rotundas, workers, and concrete, it seems as if the Buckeyes forgot one simple, yet key, thing - ice. At least that's the way it looked Saturday night during the Michigan-Ohio State hockey game.

DAVID ROCHKIND/Daily Sean Peach and the Michigan defensemen had a hard time keeping their feet, as slushy conditions at Value City Arena led to poor footing.

The Wolverines and Buckeyes - second and third-place in the CCHA, respectively - played to a 1-1 tie, but that wasn't really the story.

The story was how the ice wasn't actually ice, rather a slush similar to the one that plagued Michigan roads after the Blizzard of '99.

"The Zamboni didn't scrape the ice at all," Michigan coach Red Berenson said. "They literally watered right on the snow. They really need to do a lot of fine-tuning to get their act together for the future."

With the ice conditions going from mediocre to bad to worse throughout the game, the play suffered as well. Players who had been skating their whole lives resembled 6-year old playing in their first Pee-Wee game, as both teams were falling to the ice with regularity.

"The ice was terrible tonight," Michigan goaltender Josh Blackburn said. "It was so hot. I have never seen ice this bad before."

Skating wasn't the only thing that was sacrificed due to the slushy surface. The movement of the puck was also altered, as players struggled to control the puck and release accurate shots at the goal.

"The puck was jumping around like crazy," Michigan captain Bubba Berenzweig said. "When you went to shoot, the ice really affected it."

The problems with the ice was said to be from the logistical problems that come from a multi-purpose arena. The Michigan-Ohio State hockey game was the fourth event to be held in the building within a span of 48 hours.

Value City Arena hosted the Ferris State-Ohio State game Thursday, an ice show Friday, and a basketball game Saturday afternoon. While this kind of scheduling may be normal for the United Center and Madison Square Garden, it left the surface at Value City Arena thawed.

The ice show was particularly devastating to the ice surface. A new coat of ice was put on for the show, and the paint which was used on that surface had metal in it, making it tough to scrape.

The Value City staff scraped the ice at will, but the lack of time between the basketball game and the hockey game Saturday left less of an ice pack on the hockey surface than normal. This led to the melting of the paint on the ice.

"I got a little paint on my socks," Blackburn said.

While Michigan's play was altered by the poor conditions of the ice, Ohio State had to deal with the same conditions. In fact, the Buckeyes even warned the Wolverines before the game.

Ohio State forward Eric "Meloche came up to me and told me the ice was bad," Berenzweig said.

The Value City Arena is a prize for college hockey, with its 17,500 seats and professional-type atmosphere. But in the search for making the best looking multipurpose sports facility, Value City Arena should invest more time in making sure the ice surface yields the best-quality hockey.

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