Times Union Center ready for 6-sport week

Albany

Six days. Six sports, bookended by two ceremonies. One arena floor on which it all needs to happen.

Such is the logistical challenges faced by the operations crew at Times Union Center, which will host the inaugural Aurora Games from Aug. 20 to 25.

A first-of-its kind-event, the games will draw professional women athletes from dozens of countries to compete in tennis, gymnastics, basketball, figure skating, ice hockey and beach volleyball. They will be divided into teams led by honorary captains Jackie Joyner Kersee (Team Americas) and Nadia Comaneci (Team World) as they compete for the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Trophy.

Giving them a suitable place to compete for each event and celebrate collectively is the job of Nate Sims, director of operations at Times Union Center and a 17-year veteran of getting shows as varied as Paul McCartney and monster trucks, the circus and Siena basketball, in and out of the arena. His job is to work to accommodate visiting shows, Sims said, but also to advise what's possible and what's less so.

"They wanted to do figure skating as the first event, followed by beach volleyball," said Sims, who had to point out to Aurora Games officials that flooding and freezing the arena floor to make it an ice rink takes 36 hours. It would then need to be covered for the opening ceremonies, uncovered for skating and hockey, then thawed so it could be buried in sand for volleyball.

The lineup was tweaked: It now starts with three "deck" sports, meaning they can be played on floors installed above the arena's concrete surface: tennis, gymnastics and basketball. Then it's on to the ice sports, followed by beach volleyball.

A trucking company hauls in the sand. Afterward, a cleaning company uses a giant scrubbing machine to get rid of the last...