PROVO ? For every four fans who enter the Peaks Ice Arena for a sold-out Olympic event, there is one volunteer or paid staffer working to make the experience a pleasant one.
The Peaks, Utah County's only Olympic venue, is playing host to men's and women's ice hockey contests during the 2002 Winter Games.
When the building is packed, as it was Thursday for Team USA's win over China in women's hockey, there are 6,006 fans in the building plus another 100 or more print and broadcast journalists.
Not all of the Peaks' 1,500 workers, most of them volunteers, are present for each contest. But their efforts, including long hours of training, planning and preparation, pay off on the night of a big game.
Tim Larkin, a former NCAA soccer player, began his work as the Peaks' venue general manager for the Olympics 15 months ago when the Peaks hosted its only test event, the 2000 Four Nations Cup women's hockey tournament.
"Getting to this point is the hardest part," Larkin said. "Once you get through all the planning, the contractual discussions, getting the volunteers, scheduling the volunteers, planning the equipment deliveries, getting the transportation service down and on and on ? that process is the toughest part."
But it wasn't as simple as just moving in. SLOC had to build temporary bleachers on the north and west side of the stadium and convert the existing seating into work stations for the media. Because the temporary seating wiped out the spectator concourse, a temporary one was created.
"Seventy-five percent of the facility became a temporary adaptation of what was already here," Larkin said. "We started Nov. 1 with our bleacher system and came in here (to a finished building) on the 6th" of February.
Even with all the advance planning, there were bugs to work out.
During a practice hockey game between the Swedish and Chinese women's teams two days before the Games began, one of the arena's two Zambonis broke down. The massive ice-cleaning trucks are essential to maintaining an Olympic-caliber ice surface. A maintenance crew was dispatched by the manufacturer and repairs were made. Plus, all four tires on each Zamboni were replaced.
Then there was a miscommunication about the starting time. Team China thought the game would begin at 11:45 a.m., not 11:30 a.m., and refused to come onto the ice any sooner. That wasn't a problem for a practice game, but arena managers are under strict instructions from NBC to start the contests on time. Since then, the biggest delay for an opening face-off has been five minutes.
That same day, a media shuttle bus driven by an Idaho man unfamiliar with the area drove drastically off course and spent a half-hour lost in Provo traffic. When it finally arrived at the venue, it went to the wrong gate. Eventually, it was boarded by a National Guardsman and escorted by an unmarked police car to the proper drop-off location. A media bus scheduled for later that day didn't show up, leaving two journalists waiting almost an hour for a return trip to the Main Media Center.
But problems like that have been few and far between since normal operations began.
"By the time we had our first day of competition, we were clicking on all cylinders," said Larkin, who managed the beach volleyball venue for the '96 Summer Games in Atlanta.
At first, however, spectators were waiting as long as 40 minutes to get through the 10 spectator metal detectors outside the Peaks. By Thursday night, even with a sellout, the wait was about half that long for most fans and shorter for some. Leaving the venue also took a while at first. No parking is allowed at the Peaks and there is only one way to enter as a pedestrian, along 450 North. All spectators are encouraged to park at BYU's football stadium and take shuttle buses to the venue. But when a game ends, there are not enough buses to take everyone to their vehicles at once. That process was taking an hour, but by the middle of the first week, Peaks managers were loading all spectators onto buses within 35 minutes of the final horn.
The Olympics could not go on without thousands of volunteers. About 1,100 of them have donated their time to see that Peaks events go as planned. Most of them see very little of the Olympics ? perhaps five minutes of a game here and there while taking a break. And many of them are out in the cold the entire day, directing traffic, parking cars, searching bags, taking tickets or fulfilling some other unspectacular task.
Still, they wouldn't trade the experience for anything.
"I like to travel and just meet new people, so the chance to meet everybody coming here sounded fun," said volunteer Steve Getz, who owns a Salt Lake City company. "The other thing is, I'm in management and to try to figure out how to manage 24,000 volunteers, get them trained, get them outfitted, it's just amazing to watch."
Alisa Busche came from San Jose to work the Games. The wireless communications manufacturing supervisor is working her day job on a laptop in her hotel room each morning, then spending the rest of the day volunteering at the Peaks.
"We trade different jobs. We rotate around and get a little piece of everything," she said. "It's a wonderful experience."
Managing the media might be tougher than managing fans. While there are fewer of them, most are working on deadlines and can be a demanding bunch. Paul Allan, sports information director at Mankato State University in Minnesota, and his six supervisors oversee the Peaks' media sub-center.
"The Peaks has really been set up well to accommodate the media with the athletes," Allan said. "It's convenient for just about everybody."
Even the rowdy Latvian men's hockey fans have been accommodated. They were allowed to bring their flag and drum into the arena, "as long as they were willing to abide by some rules that were laid down for them ? not to become overly obnoxious," said Jim Donnells, a high school ROTC instructor in Provo who has volunteered to be a security team leader. "But they were cooperative and understanding of the other spectators."
And that's the bottom line for Larkin and his staff ? making the experience enjoyable and unstressful for the athletes, media and fans. Although, at a minimum of $45 per ticket, paying that VISA bill next month could be a little unsettling for some.
E-MAIL: zman@desnews.com