It's the Ice, Ice Baby

Pardon the bad Vanilla Ice reference, but Verizon Center's ice surface has made it to the pages of the Washington Post and Washington Times in a big way. It's such a controversial issue that, according to Tarik's article, "three Capitals confirmed they had been asked by the team not to discuss the ice conditions with reporters."

Howstuffworks.com has a great feature on the making of hockey ice which, not surprisingly, emphases the importance of temperature at the arena.

"When creating a new ice surface, indoor conditions are very important. [RBC Center ice supervisor Don] MacMillan says he likes to 'keep the skating surface at 24 to 26 F (about -4 C), the building temperature at about 63 F (17 C), and the indoor humidity at about 30 percent. But if it's warm outdoors and we have an event where the doors are open and all that warm air comes in, then we have to adjust it. Even one degree can make a big difference in the quality of the ice.'"

A good lesson for Verizon Center -- especially when there's a basketball game.

UPDATE: Ted replied on his blog.