Ice technicians at the Scotties have monitors to observe ice temperatures in real-time during the drawsMaking world-class curling ice for an event like the Scotties Tournament of Hearts can come down to an exact science.

That’s why when it comes to national championships, Curling Canada brings in the country’s best in chief ice technicians Greg Ewasko and Dave Merklinger and their crews.

The ice for this week’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts at Mosaic Place went in last Saturday and is a time-consuming process.

“It’s taken us 48 hours in total,” Ewasko said. “We are right over the top of the hockey ice. It will take them a total of eight to 10 hours to scrape our curling ice off and they are back to hockey.”

Yet, the ice surface is crucial in the game of curling. If the ice isn’t just right, it can could a lot of frustration among the players.

Ewasko explains what they are looking for in perfect ice conditions.

“(We want) about 25 and a half seconds speed from hogline to tee-line and then four and a half to five feet of curl,” he said.

In order to achieve that, the ice technicians must take everything into consideration, including the temperature of the ice, the temperature of the arena and the humidity.

Ewasko says the cold temperatures outside and smaller crowds during the week have been giving the technicians some problems.

“It’s so cold outside we are trying to introduce heat back into the building to compensate for some missing fans today,” Ewasko said.

“But hopefully it’ll pick up for the weekend and we can go back to barely heating the building and nice weather outside.”

He added that without adding heat to the building, they’d be faced with ice that is too slow and too straight.