Ice Art

“This is our people’s Picasso.”

Mark FitzGibbons, the War Memorial Superintendent, and his crew say they have a lot of fun with their job – especially one part in particular.

Every year, right around now, they install the hockey rink for the Syracuse Crunch’s upcoming season.

Yup, they have to put up the boards. And yup, they have to make the ice. But sandwiched inside that giant block of water is where you’ll find their, “Picasso”: the ads and the logos.

To create the canvas, they lay down a quarter inch of ice.

Then it’s time to break out the giant stencil – or as FitzGibbons calls it: “the pounce.” Why is it called a pounce? Hold onto that thought. It’ll be explained in a minute.

The pounce works exactly the way you’d think a giant stencil would work.

It has the outline of an ad or logo on it. FitzGibbons and his crew place the pounce on the ice and dump a bunch of chalk on it to transfer the outline to the ice.

To make sure the chalk goes through the pounce and the outline is crystal clear, the workers will jump, step, and “pounce” on the pounce. There you go. That’s why it’s called a pounce.

Things get a lot simpler after that.

“We paint by numbers,” said FitzGibbons. “We have a picture of the logo. We know what colors go where. And we just start painting.”

Sure, Picasso didn’t paint by numbers, but the crew says it takes pride in its work.

“We allow them to put their initials in some of the logos that they do,” said FitzGibbons, “because it’s theirs. It’s their artwork.”

Once the painting is done, they frame the artwork with another inch of ice. The finished product looks a little something like this…



(Lauren Long / The Post-Standard)


…Hey, it’s no Picasso, but it’s their Picasso.