You asked, and we listened! Our new Jacket Backers jersey is a Reebok EDGE system replica jersey, with a screen printed Jacket Backers logo crest embroidered to the jersey! Jerseys can be ordered in the home dark or away white, with or without pro-stitched customization.

Click here to download an order form!

Ok, so I promised you all the full story about putting in the ice sheet.  Here we go!  It’s a pretty long and detailed story and took me hours to put together while reviewing my notes, photos and emails – I hope you enjoy it – let me know what you think!  I captured a timeline during the process via emailing myself with my mobile phone and will list that below the story.  I have also uploaded a new set of photos to the Jacket Backers Flickr account.  The set is titled “Installing the Main Ice at Nationwide 2009” – check it out soon for a snapshot sequential history of our efforts.  You can either click the links in this sentence to view the photos as a slideshow or click to view the photo set of snapshots.  I took the majority of the photos early on, but when it got later and I was spending a lot of time on painting details, my husband Brian took most of the photos at that point.  I didn’t upload every photo, as I took loads of them.  I would be willing to share additional photos or short video clips with anyone who might be curious to see the full set.

I am sharing this story from my personal experience and impressions, and I am sure I will inevitably get some of the details incorrect.  I also unfortunately was not so good at keeping track of everyone’s names that I worked with that evening into morning.  If you have any further questions or corrections on this story, please contact me at president@jacketbackers.org.  I would be happy to pass your questions along to the ice technicians, and I would also be happy to correct any mistakes that I’ve made in this narrative.

The ice is installed at Nationwide by hand.  It begins with the refrigeration tubes being turned on beneath the bare concrete floor.  I have no idea how long they were actually turned on for before Brian and I come into the picture.  I do know the process was delayed as the breakdown and cleanup of the Creed concert the night before took longer than anticipated.  We arrived at noon originally and were asked to come back at 5 pm.  Once we arrived, we needed to wait a bit longer for the temperature of the concrete to reach the proper temperature (23 degrees?) before we could begin spraying on the ice surface.  I wandered around and took a number of pictures of the tools we would be using to create and paint the ice.  I found it mildly amusing that the paint containers were labeled with color names such as “ Redline Batch #114” and “Goalcrease Batch #116”.  Not surprisingly, the paint was made in Canada by a company called Jet Ice, whose trademarked tagline is “We bring ice to life.”  While we were waiting for the floor to get cold enough, the crew worked on mixing white paint (“Super White 3000”) in a big tank, which was filled with hot water from the building’s boilers.  They put 8 boxes of powdered colorant in per tank, and each 44-lb. box per the instructions printed on the side made 30 gallons.  They stirred the paint with an old hockey stick.