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The football field at TD Place stadium remains the same size. The lines, the goalposts, even the orange cones designating end-zone margins are all in their regular positions.
Even so, Mike Cerha describes Grey Cup as “a Redblacks game on steroids” in terms of stadium operations.
Cerha is vice-president of venues and entertainment for Ottawa Sports & Entertainment Group, the corporate parent of the Ottawa Redblacks and manager of Lansdowne Park, which puts him in charge of preparing the playing surface on which the Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders will battle for the Canadian Football League’s championship on Sunday evening.
“It is a special event. It is an event with what we call national significance,” Cerha said as workers applied finishing touches to corporate suites atop the massive temporary grandstand at the stadium’s east end. “There’s a lot of activities that would not normally happen at a Redblacks game.”
Family obligations took Cerha to China, where he previously worked as general manager for the Zhongsheng Center arena in Dalian, while the past two Grey Cup games were being played at Winnipeg and Toronto, but he received a first-hand view of on- and off-field details at Vancouver in 2014.
He can also draw on the experience and lessons from Snowmaggedon, last year’s CFL’s East Division final between the Redblacks and Edmonton Eskimos, when what began as a cloudy, chilly Sunday deteriorated into a windblown mix of freezing rain and snow.
At halftime, spectators cheered as crew members crossed the goal-line behind scrapers pushing huge, heavy mounds of that awful mess. Mechanical sweepers had cleared snow from the sidelines, but they also scrubbed off painted lines and the tip on the paint sprayer broke, so the second half was played with one boundary marked by a few dabs of paint from a brush and plastic safety cones.
Cerha uses “herculean” to describe efforts to make the field as playable as it was, but he guarantees TD Place stadium will be better prepared if it happens again, given that nobody has yet figured out how to make it snow less.
First, though, a short interlude about “normal” operations at the home facility of the Redblacks and Ottawa Fury FC of the United Soccer League, with games often played on consecutive days and less than 24 hours apart.
Lines for football and soccer are usually laid down with what Cerha calls “day to day” water-soluble paint that can be easily scrubbed. Last year’s extended playoff runs by both Fury FC and the Redblacks meant that practice continued into November.
Fury FC failed to qualify for the 2017 USL playoffs, so football lines were done in more durable “seasonal” paint, although sponsor logos were done in “day to day” because they were only in place during CFL regular-season play. National sponsor logos were installed before the Nov. 12 East semifinal between the Redblacks and Saskatchewan Roughriders, so only touch-ups would be required, and the Grey Cup will also showcase a new centre-field logo plus the Argos’ and Stamps’ names in the end zones.
It also turns out that the CFL has a snow-removal plan, and another lesson learned last November means more and better equipment, such as snowblades suited for artificial turf surfaces, will be available for Grey Cup use by 50 crew members: eight tradespeople, two full-time stadium operations staff and 40 part-timers.
Hopefully they won’t need the that new gear, but it’s Canada and it’s late November, so …
“We were expecting snow (last year), but I don’t know if we were expecting that much snow,” Cerha said. “I don’t know if anybody was fully expecting that. So, to say this year we are more prepared, I would say 100 per cent.”
That is just for the playing surface. There are other considerations related to the temporary seating that will boost stadium capacity as much as much as 50 per cent above its usual figure of 24,000.
Cerha said salt bins in various location would allow staff to improve footing in seating areas as required, plus epoxy flooring had been installed earlier this year on top of concrete on the south grandstand concourse.
Additional hands on deck will augment the normal corps of 1,000 part-time workers for Redblacks games, and some of the 700 Grey Cup volunteers might find themselves assisting in public areas around the stadium.
The Argonauts and Stampeders can choose to practise either outdoors at TD Place or under the University of Ottawa’s domed playing surface on Lees Avenue this week, so stadium crews may have to work around rambunctious footballers. There will also be several additional camera positions and a compound for broadcasters TSN/RDS, plus the stage for Shania Twain’s halftime performance that must be installed and removed lickety-split.
Cerha said his crews were accustomed to working around back-to-back Redblacks and Fury FC practices. His goal is to complete field preparations by Friday, leaving the weekend for final touch-ups and smaller assignments such as placing sponsor tent advertisements.
Lansdowne Park will open for pre-Grey Cup tailgate parties at 12 noon Sunday. Admission to the stadium will start at 4 p.m., two hours before kickoff.
Then the game will be played. One CFL team will celebrate a title, another will wonder “what if.” A day later, deconstruction of Grey Cup infrastructure will commence so the facility can be turned over to the National Hockey League a couple of weeks before the Ottawa Senators-Montreal Canadiens NHL 100 Classic outdoor game.
“Even though they’re both super events, they both operate in a different way,” Cerha said.
“But that’s our job, that’s what we’re used to doing in stadium operations. We have concerts that come in at 6 a.m. and leave at 1 a.m., and then the next day we’re doing a hockey game and then the next day we’re doing a gospel concert, and then the next day we’re doing a basketball game. That’s how we operate and that’s how we think.”
One last thing: Grey Cup fans usually get really thirsty, so will they have enough beer?
“Yes,” Cerha said, “we will.”
gholder@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/HolderGord
查看原文...
Even so, Mike Cerha describes Grey Cup as “a Redblacks game on steroids” in terms of stadium operations.
Cerha is vice-president of venues and entertainment for Ottawa Sports & Entertainment Group, the corporate parent of the Ottawa Redblacks and manager of Lansdowne Park, which puts him in charge of preparing the playing surface on which the Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders will battle for the Canadian Football League’s championship on Sunday evening.
“It is a special event. It is an event with what we call national significance,” Cerha said as workers applied finishing touches to corporate suites atop the massive temporary grandstand at the stadium’s east end. “There’s a lot of activities that would not normally happen at a Redblacks game.”
Family obligations took Cerha to China, where he previously worked as general manager for the Zhongsheng Center arena in Dalian, while the past two Grey Cup games were being played at Winnipeg and Toronto, but he received a first-hand view of on- and off-field details at Vancouver in 2014.
He can also draw on the experience and lessons from Snowmaggedon, last year’s CFL’s East Division final between the Redblacks and Edmonton Eskimos, when what began as a cloudy, chilly Sunday deteriorated into a windblown mix of freezing rain and snow.
At halftime, spectators cheered as crew members crossed the goal-line behind scrapers pushing huge, heavy mounds of that awful mess. Mechanical sweepers had cleared snow from the sidelines, but they also scrubbed off painted lines and the tip on the paint sprayer broke, so the second half was played with one boundary marked by a few dabs of paint from a brush and plastic safety cones.
Cerha uses “herculean” to describe efforts to make the field as playable as it was, but he guarantees TD Place stadium will be better prepared if it happens again, given that nobody has yet figured out how to make it snow less.
First, though, a short interlude about “normal” operations at the home facility of the Redblacks and Ottawa Fury FC of the United Soccer League, with games often played on consecutive days and less than 24 hours apart.
Lines for football and soccer are usually laid down with what Cerha calls “day to day” water-soluble paint that can be easily scrubbed. Last year’s extended playoff runs by both Fury FC and the Redblacks meant that practice continued into November.
Fury FC failed to qualify for the 2017 USL playoffs, so football lines were done in more durable “seasonal” paint, although sponsor logos were done in “day to day” because they were only in place during CFL regular-season play. National sponsor logos were installed before the Nov. 12 East semifinal between the Redblacks and Saskatchewan Roughriders, so only touch-ups would be required, and the Grey Cup will also showcase a new centre-field logo plus the Argos’ and Stamps’ names in the end zones.
It also turns out that the CFL has a snow-removal plan, and another lesson learned last November means more and better equipment, such as snowblades suited for artificial turf surfaces, will be available for Grey Cup use by 50 crew members: eight tradespeople, two full-time stadium operations staff and 40 part-timers.
Hopefully they won’t need the that new gear, but it’s Canada and it’s late November, so …
“We were expecting snow (last year), but I don’t know if we were expecting that much snow,” Cerha said. “I don’t know if anybody was fully expecting that. So, to say this year we are more prepared, I would say 100 per cent.”
That is just for the playing surface. There are other considerations related to the temporary seating that will boost stadium capacity as much as much as 50 per cent above its usual figure of 24,000.
Cerha said salt bins in various location would allow staff to improve footing in seating areas as required, plus epoxy flooring had been installed earlier this year on top of concrete on the south grandstand concourse.
Additional hands on deck will augment the normal corps of 1,000 part-time workers for Redblacks games, and some of the 700 Grey Cup volunteers might find themselves assisting in public areas around the stadium.
The Argonauts and Stampeders can choose to practise either outdoors at TD Place or under the University of Ottawa’s domed playing surface on Lees Avenue this week, so stadium crews may have to work around rambunctious footballers. There will also be several additional camera positions and a compound for broadcasters TSN/RDS, plus the stage for Shania Twain’s halftime performance that must be installed and removed lickety-split.
Cerha said his crews were accustomed to working around back-to-back Redblacks and Fury FC practices. His goal is to complete field preparations by Friday, leaving the weekend for final touch-ups and smaller assignments such as placing sponsor tent advertisements.
Lansdowne Park will open for pre-Grey Cup tailgate parties at 12 noon Sunday. Admission to the stadium will start at 4 p.m., two hours before kickoff.
Then the game will be played. One CFL team will celebrate a title, another will wonder “what if.” A day later, deconstruction of Grey Cup infrastructure will commence so the facility can be turned over to the National Hockey League a couple of weeks before the Ottawa Senators-Montreal Canadiens NHL 100 Classic outdoor game.
“Even though they’re both super events, they both operate in a different way,” Cerha said.
“But that’s our job, that’s what we’re used to doing in stadium operations. We have concerts that come in at 6 a.m. and leave at 1 a.m., and then the next day we’re doing a hockey game and then the next day we’re doing a gospel concert, and then the next day we’re doing a basketball game. That’s how we operate and that’s how we think.”
One last thing: Grey Cup fans usually get really thirsty, so will they have enough beer?
“Yes,” Cerha said, “we will.”
gholder@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/HolderGord
查看原文...
