Slick trick: turning a basketball court into a hockey rink is merely a matter of picking up the pieces without losing your cool.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: PICTURE THIS

Considering that the main tenant of the Charlotte Bobcats Arena loses far more often than it wins, some of the best work there is done after the basketball team and its fans clear the exits. That's when Matt Sarabyan, 34, the Bobcats' director of events administration, sends out a crew with rush orders to remake the floor.

How that happens depends on the next event. The arena, owned by the city and managed by the National Basketball Association team, will play host to about 150 events this year, including NBA games, Charlotte Checkers minor-league hockey matches, concerts and professional wrestling. The shifts from basketball to hockey and back are the most dramatic.

Going from hardwood to ice starts by pushing in retractable seats and removing about 1,500 temporary ones. A hockey rink, at about 17,000 square feet, is more than three times the size of a basketball court. The arena holds about 18,500 seats for basketball and 14,000 for hockey. Workers remove the basketball goals and pull apart the court. They reinstall the walls and glass that surround the rink and reassemble benches and penalty boxes. Meanwhile, more than 100 slabs of decking--1 1/2-inch-thick...