How to turn a hockey rink into a pool in 10 days

On a typical cold December night,this arena might be brimming with junior hockey fans in the seats for a Windsor Spitfires game.

But this week is different. With the WFCU Centre hosting the short-course swimming world championships, the 61-metre-long sheet of white ice has been replaced by a sparkling, blue, 10-lane, 25-metre pool.

"When you actually see it, it blows you away," says Windsorite and Spitfires fan Richard Jazvack, who can leave his sweater at home the poolside temperature is a balmy 27 degrees Celsius, up from 21 C for a hockey game.

Quick switch

The transformation from a hockey rink to an empty pool was completed in less than 10 days.

Step 1 is the preparation of a base to support the roughly 1.9 million litres of water needed to fill the 2.2-metre-deep pool.

Beginning in the hours after a Spitfires overtime victory on Nov. 18, the ice was melted and the boards removed. Then about one foot of sand was poured in to raise the base (the ice sits a bit below the first row of seats).

The first stage involved around 60 tradespeople, many of whom had never worked on a pool before.

Canadianbuilders

By day four the base was done, making way for a special team from Myrtha Pools, an Italian company with branches around the world.

The company built or renovated 17 pools in Brazil ahead of this year's Olympics including the main competition pool and training tankin Rio according toTrevor Tiffany. The Canadian isa former national team coach who pivoted to building pools full-time in 1992 and has done about two dozen special events.

Earlier this summer, Myrtha put an Olympic-size (50 metres long) pool in Omaha's CenturyLink Center for the U.S. Olympic team trials.

Trevor's son Andrew Tiffany also works on the pools, along with a collection of friends from their hometown of Almonte, Ont.

Evidently, Canada has world-renowned ice makers and pool builders, and the two groups have more than their expert status in common.

There's a loonie and a penny tucked beneath the pool liner in Windsor, in line with the well-known hockey tradition.

• More than 1 Penny in short-course pool in Windsor

The younger Tiffany also put a toonie under the Rio pool they built.

And while at the Olympics they helped solve the green water problem at the diving and water polo venue.

Highest standards

Trevor Tiffany says it would normally take about three weeks to build a temporary pool like the one in Windsor. But their company often works on tighter timelines because most event organizers wish to minimize the cost of renting an entire venue like the WFCU Centre.

Yet despite the time crunch, the Myrtha team still managed to build the Windsor pool within the required 2-4millimetres of "tolerance" the fingernail-thin margin by which they're allowed to deviate from the exact dimensions.

"You can be long but you can't be short," says Tiffany.

In Windsor, they succeeded by installing the stainless-steel panels and support buttresses to be slightly over 25 metres, then tightened them lane by lane to account for the touch pads that can impact length.

The water came from a fire hydrant outside, was cleaned by a high-end filter, and then warmed-up with a gas heater to the competition temperature of 84 degrees Fahrenheit (about 29 C).

The entire process had a few minor hiccups, but by all accounts went smoothly.

"The important part in a rapid install is to stay calm," laughs Tiffany.