How Wichita’s ice rinks have transformed for national figure skating championships

The hockey rink in Intrust Bank Arena is looking a little different in late January. Instead of an arena of Thunder fans, whistles and pads colliding, you’ll instead hear the sound of skaters jumping and landing and see the sparkle of sequins.

That’s because Wichita is the host of the 2025 Prevagen US Figure Skating Championships, bringing more than 180 athletes to the city to compete at the junior, novice and championship levels. The first competitions, at the junior and novice levels, started Tuesday with other competitions ramping up later in the week.

While this isn’t the first figure skating event Wichita has held, this is the first time the championship has been held in both Wichita and Kansas as a whole.

“We’ve hosted four different figure skating events all the way back to 2018,” said Josh Howell, Visit Wichita’s vice present of sports development. “You have to start there to kind of prove your worth and again, build that trust and that relationship with the staff at U.S. figure skating.”

But getting an event like this on the schedule is just the beginning.

What exactly does it take to put on an event like this one? How many people does it take? We spoke with U.S. Figure Skating’s senior director of events about what the championship looks like behind the scenes.

Setting up the championship

The Wichita Thunder played their last game Wednesday, Jan. 15. By Thursday morning, U.S. Figure Skating was moving in.

While having an ice rink already available was helpful, the transition between a hockey rink and a figure skating rink is actually a whole process.

“The most important asset, of any venue for us, is ice,” said Bob Dunlop, the senior director of events. “Figure skating ... the ice temperature is a little different than hockey.

”We actually bring our own ice technicians to the competition to collaborate with the venue staff to make sure that, you know, they understand the wants and needs of our athletes,” Dunlop said.

First, the top layer of hockey rink ice is shaved away. Then a layer of water is added, followed by white paint, followed by more water, followed by sponsorship logos, then an inch of ice over that.

One big difference between the setups that’s special to this competition? Microphones in the ice.

NBC will broadcast the championships live from Thursday through Sunday. With the microphones implanted in the rink, TV viewers will be able to hear the blades clearly, which is meant to add to the experience.

“They’re kind of leveraging this event as their pre-Olympic rehearsal going into the Olympic year for 2026, so a lot of activity from the NBC side,” Dunlop said.

Running the competition

But just because the setup is over doesn’t mean that’s the end of the work.

“The rest of the week [is] about servicing our athletes, our coaches,” Dunlop said.

Dunlop said it takes about 100 people to put on the championship on a day-to-day basis.

“Throughout the day, we’ll have various shifts, certainly volunteers, we recruit, both on a national scale and locally, through the skating community and through our Visit Wichita partners,” Dunlop said.

For example, on Tuesday, Dunlop said they had various staff begin work at 6 a.m. and they wouldn’t be done until 10:45 p.m. Workers you may see around when attending the events include security, arena event staff, officials and more.

Officials were a major need for the championships.

“We have the probably 65 volunteer officials that come up through our sport and that come to Wichita and that judge and serve as technical experts for the competition. So that’s a pretty big lift,” Dunlop said.

But as a rule of thumb, every day is different.

“Overall, it’s just a little bit of change every day, a lot of practices, competitions throughout, starting today all the way through Sunday night, and then at the end of the week, we break all this down, and we load out, and we thank Wichita for a great event,” Dunlop said.

When the arena isn’t being used for a competition, skaters use the rink for warm up and practices. In addition to the event venue, the Wichita Ice Center is also serving as a private practice venue for the athletes.

How to attend the championship

The championship has events throughout the week, and tickets still on sale. Howell said that Wichita’s reaction to this event has been full of excitement .

“We’ve heard that from the locals that we’ve talked to how excited they are to able to witness a championship event like this live and in person,” Howell said. “ [You get to] see a lot of Olympic skaters, past and hopefully future. ... You can see them right here in our own backyard.”

The championship will wrap up novice and junior competitions Wednesday, Jan. 22, before moving onto the championship part of the event Thursday. US Figure Skating will wrap up the event with the “Prevagen Skating Spectacular” show on Sunday, Jan. 26, which will feature music from Music Theatre Wichita.

Tickets for all events can be purchased on SelectASeat.com. Prices range from $15 to more than $100, depending on the event.

Lindsay Smith

The Wichita Eagle

Lindsay Smith is a suburban news reporter for the Wichita Eagle, covering the communities of Andover, Bel Aire, Derby, Haysville and Kechi. She has been on The Eagle staff since 2022 and was the service journalism reporter for three years. She has a degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism from Wichita State, where she was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Sunflower, for two years. You can reach her via email at lsmith@wichitaeagle.com.