E109: Ice, Steel, & Engineering Joy: How Magic Ice Builds Community One Rink at a Time

What makes Andre Sanders with Magic Ice USA a good neighbor?  

A glittering rink under a million lights, a city skyline reflected in the ice, and an operation that turns cold physics into warm community- this conversation with Andre Sanders of Magic Ice pulls back the curtain on the Rink at PPG Place. We trace the 25-year arc of a Pittsburgh winter icon and the national network of rinks that grew from it, revealing how engineering, operations, and thoughtful marketing keep skates gliding through busy weekends and surprise warm spells.

Andre unpacks the myths first. The towering tree? It’s a steel lattice dressed in realistic branches and LEDs, upgraded for brightness and efficiency. The ice on a 50-degree day? Still solid, thanks to chilled glycol running beneath the surface, creating a stable freeze like an indoor rink outdoors. The real nemesis is wind, which strips away the insulating cold air layer above the sheet and forces the ice to give up heat- an elegant physics lesson that shapes maintenance schedules and guest experience.

We also explore the people side: who skates and when, why families love daytime and teens favor nights, and how Magic Ice can deliver anything from staffing and ticketing to Zamboni runs and marketing. At PPG, the team handles it all, ensuring clean ice, quick lines, and a festive atmosphere that draws spectators even if they never lace up. Behind the scenes, a mostly high school and college crew builds a culture that feels like a seasonal village- fast shifts, shared wins, and alumni stories that include friendships and even marriages.

Looking ahead, Andre’s crew is leaning into social storytelling- live moments, short behind-the-scenes clips, and staff spotlights that capture the craft and charm of rink life. It all flows from a simple promise: “We make winter magic happen.” For hours, specials, and tickets, visit rinkatppgplace.com. Curious about bringing a rink to your city? Explore magiciceusa.com to see how it’s done. If this story made you smile, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves winter, and leave a review- what’s your favorite rink memory?

To learn more about The UPMC Rink at PPG Place presented by Magic Ice USA go to: 

http://www.therinkatppgplace.com/

The UPMC Rink at PPG Place presented by Magic Ice USA

(412) 394-3641

Transcript

Meet Magic Ice At PPG Place

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Lila Carter.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of a boutique ice skating company? One might be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Andre Sanders, with Magic Ice and the Rink at PPG Place. Andre, how's it going today?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Things are going good. Things are going good. Weather's perfect for ice skating.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Absolutely. Now that we're through all that snow, huh?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yeah, so snow's a problem, but we're through it now, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yeah, we're excited to learn all about you and your business. Um, you guys are literally a Pittsburgh icon in the winter times with the ice skating rink down at PPG. Please tell us more about your company.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Uh well, this is our 25th year of the ice rink down at PPG, so it's our 25th anniversary season. Um, the company Magic Ice USA, who um operates and runs the rink down at PPG Place, has run it all 25 years. It was one of the first ice rinks that our company actually began doing back in 2001, which was our first year here. Um, we did have some experience in the ice rink business before that, but since then we've expanded to operate um ice rinks all over the country. Um, we set up and sell ice rinks, and we also operate them. Um annually, we usually set up about 40 ice rinks, and we usually operate about 20 of them for our clients and customers throughout the country, you know, from California all the way up to New York City. You know, we have them in Florida, in Texas, um, and you know, all the way up in Chicago and then Pittsburgh, of course, with the iconic ice rink here at PPG Place.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

What a unique business business. How did you get into that?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Um, well, I met the owner of the company down here at PPG Place um back in 2002, 2003, and um, once you kind of got an idea of my skill sets and some of the things that I can help uh the company grow with, especially the engineering part, uh I am an engineer, um I was able to get on board and help them develop some of the things that we do here with the company.

Myths: The Tree And The Ice

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah, I love that whenever you get to go and experience that rink that you're surrounded by the PPG place buildings that um Oxford has down there, and just the experience just such a quintessential Pittsburgh winter moment. Um, so what are some myths or maybe misconceptions in this industry that you'd like to talk about today?

Wind, Heat, And Ice Engineering

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Well, a lot of people um about the rink in particular down in Pittsburgh, they always ask, is the tree real? And the tree is not, uh, it is an artificial tree. We've had people who wanted to donate a Christmas tree from their property to be the tree in PPG Place. Um, but unfortunately, it's it's not a real tree. It's a it's a steel lattice with uh an artificial tree on top of it with all of our lights. We have over a million LED lights. Um, we've replaced that the tree lighting uh about five years ago, which really updated it and made a really spectacular tree. The old tree was great, uh, but the new one is kind of nice. Uh and the other thing that um all often comes up, people will often call us if it's above freezing and ask, you know, do we still have ice? Um I think a lot of people were under the impression that we just throw water out there and if it's cold enough, it freezes. Uh, but clearly that wouldn't be a good business model because you'd be really dependent on Mother Nature. So um we actually, just like all indoor ice rinks, we have cooling, you know, we have tubes underneath uh the ice that are providing uh glycol or uh a liquid that we keep at about 12 degrees so that when we spray water on it, it freezes and that maintains our ice temperature. So even when it's 40, 50 degrees, um, such as uh two days ago when it we hit 60 in Pittsburgh, you know, the ice was clean and fine and and and no problems. Um the only thing that really bothers us, um, sun doesn't really bother us, temperatures don't really bother us if it's you know uh you know below 60, is the wind. The wind is the biggest problem we have to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

And why is that?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Um what happens uh with an ice rink, as with any any surface, actually, right above the ice, you know, there's a really cold layer layer of air because the ice and the air will exchange temperatures. Um, you know, so the air gets really cool because it wants to meet the same temperature of the ice, it wants to get into uh an equilibrium balance. And if the air is very still, that cold air just sits above the ice and it acts as an insulating layer. Whereas if it's windy, um that cold air that's sitting above the ice gets blown away and warm air gets brought in. So in order to cool that air down to the temperature of the ice to reach that equilibrium, it starts pulling heat out of the ice. So the ice will start to get warmer and it'll start to melt and get slushy. So when it's if it's if it's above freezing uh and it's windy, uh, it can make a challenge to have good ice. You know, once it gets above 50 degrees and it's windy, it's tough. If it's below 50 degrees and windy, it's not that bad. If it's below freezing, it doesn't matter how windy it is. It's it'll still be ice because the temperatures are cold.

Who Skates Here And When

SPEAKER_02 5:08

That's interesting insight there. And whenever you're thinking about marketing for this business, are your target customers uh in a specific segment, or is it everyone who wants to kind of slide and skate around?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Well, it's a pretty broad target group. Um, you know, we we have different kinds of specials that we have, so we're targeting certain things like student night, family night, where we're targeting families. Um, but we really want anybody to come and ice skate. Um we have a lot of people that come down with uh grandparents who come down with their kids and they don't even want to ice skate, but they want to come and watch. So they can sit inside the restaurant that we have right next to the rink, drink some hot chocolate, or sit on one of the benches if it's not too cold and watch their kids skate. But the demographic is anybody. Anybody who likes outdoor activities in the in the winter, likes to be outside, doesn't mind bundling up to stay warm. Um, those are the people we're looking at, people who like outdoor fitness, uh wintertime activities. Um, there's really no age or or demographic that we would we would not go after. We kind of go after everybody. Daytime, we typically get families, um, especially on the weekends in the evening. We get more of the older crowd, the uh the young adults and the teenagers will come skating at night. Um the and so it's it kind of changes a little bit throughout the day, but really we're we're targeting everybody when we market.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

So your company is also, as I understand it, managing the rentals and the Zamboni's as well?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, we do everything. Um, our company, um, when we come into a client, we offer them as much or as little as they want us to do. Um, for some of them, we handle everything. We handle the ticketing, the online ticketing, we handle uh gathering admissions and and collecting the money and depositing that into the bank accounts, all the rental skates, the Zamboni, uh keeping the facility clean and safe, uh hiring staff. Um some companies only want us to come in and manage the the building and they sell all the tickets. Um it really varies. Here at PPG, we virtually do everything. Um we set up everything, we run the Zamboni, we maintain the ice, we hire the staff, we train the staff, uh, we we collect tickets, we do online ticketing, we do the marketing for the rink. Um we virtually cover head-to-toe everything that goes on here at the rink.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I have been watching the Olympics, the winter Olympics in Milan, and I just saw that someone had landed a backflip that was previously done years ago, but uh at that time it was an illegal move, and now it's it's allowed, and in Milan it just happened, it's so exciting. Um, and you don't have to have you know backflip skills to be able to enjoy some ice skating. I think it's just such a widely spread, enjoyed activity amongst so many different groups of people. Um, as we're thinking about reaching these different people, have you ever thought about potentially starting your own podcast?

Social Media And Story Ideas

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Um, we haven't, we've been exploring more and more our our social opportunities, uh social media opportunities. Only only the last five years have we actually had a social media presence for the rink on the ice. And this year we actually have somebody who's worked here in the past, who's an alumni, um, has taken over running our social media. Um, and she's done an excellent job. She's worked here for years, so she knows our business inside and out. So she handles that. And one of the things she suggested is possibly doing some live shots on YouTube to start off and to think about um some of those things. We've always thought about and and every business thinks this. Wow, wouldn't it be really cool if Netflix did a behind the scenes uh at the rink, you know, a 10-episode thing of you know of the staff and the interaction with everybody. But every company thinks that. But we think it would be enjoyable a lot for us for the staff to watch. Um, but you know, the public might enjoy something like that. So that could be something where we we stream maybe on TikTok five-minute little episodes once a week of the going-ons at the rink, you know, behind the scenes of the staff. Um, and a lot of people thought that suggestion was a good idea, so we might explore that for next year.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, it's such a unique space to be in in business. I'm sure that a lot of people would be really interested to learn kind of what you guys do there.

Staff Culture And Alumni Stories

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah, that's it's pretty neat. It's a it's um it's a really fun job. Uh, one of the things every employee that's ever come back um you know here has always said this is the funnest job they've ever had. Um we have a pretty pretty diverse group of people in in age and and sex and um ethnicity, so it's a really wide range. Um but for the most part, the demographic is generally you know, high school and college age um people, so they're all working with people their own age. Um, when we're busy, the day goes very fast because it's so busy. You're so busy you don't even notice the eight hours have gone by. Um and because everybody's kind of the same age in the for the most part, um, people get along really well and build a lot of long long-term friendships. We've had people who've gotten married, who've met here at the rink, who are staffed, who've uh gotten together and ended up getting married later on. Um, and so it's it's quite a unique little alumni group we have, and people love coming back and skating here and and enjoying the the new staff as well.

Andre’s Life Beyond The Rink

SPEAKER_02 10:05

That's such a sweet, cute story as far as like the meeting and then being able to celebrate there. Uh so outside of work, Andre, what do you do for fun?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Uh, what do I do for fun? Well, I do like to travel a lot um in the off season. I do I'd like to go to national parks and do a lot of hiking. Uh, you know, go to Zion National Park, Canyon Lands National Park, uh, Yosemite, do a lot of hiking there. And uh, as a side hobby, um, it's nice to have a hobby that pays. I also officiate sports. I officiate um collegiate soccer and collegiate men's lacrosse. I've been doing that for uh 23 years for lacrosse and or for soccer and 22 years for lacrosse. Um so I like to do that, and that's a lot of fun. Sometimes I get on TV, depending on the game. Uh, but it's it's a side job that or it's a side hobby that actually pays. So it's kind of neat and it keeps me in shape, keeps me running around. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Very good. Excellent. Well, Andre, please tell our listeners one thing that they should remember about magic ice.

Slogan, Websites, And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Um, we make winter magic happen, is kind of one of our slogans. Um, because we like to be able to think that um we can take an environment and just turn it into a beautiful spectacular uh once in in a in a kind of season thing that people get to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

So you certainly do. And how can our listeners learn more about magic ice?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Well, we have uh the rink itself has a website, uh, the rink at ppgplace.com. It has all the information about the rink, our specials, our times and hours. And if you want to learn about the company Magic Ice, we have a website as well, uh, magic iceusa.com. It's the best place. Uh if you want information about contacting the company, because you're thinking about maybe you wanted a rank in your area, um, you'd be able to reach through us through that. Um, all of our information is there, and there's lots of pictures of all the different rinks that we do every year annually. Um, so you can get an idea of what kind of business we do, uh, the kind of rings that we run uh throughout the country, and and you get an idea if this is something that's right for you.

Thank Yous And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Excellent. Well, Andre, it was such a pleasure to have you on today. We very much appreciate your time and we wish Magic Ice the best of luck moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Thanks so much, Lee. I appreciate you having us here today.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnppittsburgh.com. That's gnppittsburgh.com or call four one two five six one nine nine five six.