LEWISTON – The final preparations for any event tend to come to a head in the final 24 hours. But what happens when there are more than just a few loose ends?

Here is a look at the final 24 hours of preparation to get the Central Maine Civic Center ready for Friday night’s opening game against Drummondville.

24 hours, 7 p.m. Thursday

The scoreboard and clock that will hang from the center of the arena is in pieces on the ice. A crew of three works to assemble the giant electrical structure before hoisting it to the rafters with a crane, which is also sitting on the newly-painted ice.

The section signs telling fans where to sit hang, some crooked and some straight, from the walls behind their respective sections. Just below the signs, a crew of three people works to install the last of the seating, approximately 1,000, bright-blue bleacher seats. The whirl of the drill as it grinds into the concrete drowns out speech near where they’re working.

A carpenter works to finish a kiosk that will temporarily serve as the merchandise center. Roland Landry starts to unload his merchandise from boxes, laying out fleece jackets, sweatshirts, tiny hockey sticks and hats on a table in front of the old trophy cases.

The bright flash of a welding torch catches the eye from the far left end of the arena where metal workers work to assemble the last of the handrails. In the front, Rob Mainville and Matt McKnight work to unfurl the advertising signs that, when cut and placed, will grace the inside of the boards around the ice.

18 hours, 1 a.m. Friday

Driving toward the building, you can see lights shine through the tiny windows like portholes of a distant cruise ship aglow at dusk. Inside, the motors from the generators powering the cooling system make the only audible sound. A crew of six people leaves through a side door, leaving building owner Roger Theriault alone in the back. He will be in all night hosing the ice down, building it up over the newly-painted logos.

The scoreboard is fully assembled and shows zeroes. The ads on the boards, the ones that have arrived, are fastened tightly. The sheet ads that will hang behind the bleachers on the outer walls have yet to arrive, and may not for opening night.

In the stairwells and around work sites, a smattering of work gloves, tools and paint cans litter the ground, left behind so crews can pick up in the morning.

7 hours, noon Friday

The last of the bleacher seats are being screwed into the walls and the floors. There is much activity about as people dust off chairs and sweep up floors. All the stairways leading from the ice to the seats have been covered with ads for Oxford Networks.

Missing railings at the top front corners of the arena have been installed, and a pair of pipes hang, waiting for a welder’s touch.

Both the new ticket booth and the merchandise kiosk have been painted Maineiac blue, and now match the rest of the building.

On the outside, painters apply a final coat of paint to the poles and to the facade of the building, trimming the beige and off-white with a dark red.

In perhaps the most significant part of the day’s preparation, two people from the state Fire Marshal’s office arrived for an inspection, making sure emergency lighting, fire extinguishers and the like have been installed, and that there are no code violations that would prevent the building from opening at 6 p.m.

3 hours, 3:30 p.m. Friday

The din has died down now as most of the nonessential arena staff have made their exit. The Central Maine Civic Center employees start to filter in and are handed their new uniforms. McKnight and Mainville hang the last of the advertisements on the boards and representatives from Federal Distributors hang banners in lieu of ads where the Budweiser ads would normally be.

All of the tools and other pieces of equipment have been moved, save for the tools used by the bleacher crew. After the afternoon inspection, crews had to shift the bleachers slightly to comply with code. After those are done, the crew starts to dissipate.

Down by the locker room, the trainer starts to prepare the equipment. The media room is being stocked and the aroma of popcorn starts to float across the ice. Season ticket holders filter in and out, too anxious to wait for game time. In the adjacent trailer, people are flowing through the door, scrounging for extra tickets.

1 hour, 6 p.m. Friday

The flood of people waiting outside, many who had huddled under the awning to avoid the rain, start climbing the stairs in one large mass, nearly overwhelming the three ticket-takers positioned at the top of the stairs. Any work on the structure or the bleachers is long finished. The overhead lights are dimmed and only the faint glow of the emergency lights glistens off the fresh surface of the ice.

At first glance to the left, patrons flock to the merchandise kiosk, looking to buy some of the new blue, black and white shirts, hats and jackets.

As the team takes the ice for warm-ups, fans who have ambled back to the home end of the arena start applauding as the team, donning their black-and-blue away jerseys, skates through the threshold for the first time.

For all of the work, the moment has finally arrived. For all of the sacrifice, Lewiston/Auburn has a reason to celebrate again.

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