Perhaps nobody is looking forward to the expected drop in Lansing area temperatures more than Al Osterloh.

Osterloh owns Los Tres Papagayos, the company contracted to ready Spartan Stadium for “The Cold War” hockey game Saturday night - and Wednesday’s sunny, warm weather was giving him cold feet.

The rink had some solid ice Wednesday afternoon, but it was submerged in a fair amount of standing water. Small work crews packed ice chips along the bottom of the boards and sealed them with fire extinguishers to keep the water from seeping onto the stadium’s artificial turf.

“This is the worst combination of weather you can have - hot sun shining right on the rink and wind,” Osterloh said. “We haven’t lost (all the ice), but there’s a lot of water on top. I’ve never looked forward to the sun going down more.

“I feel helpless. There’s nothing I can do about it - it’s Mother Nature.”

But it’s not time to panic yet, Osterloh assures. His company, which started the ice-making process Monday night, expected some meltdown during the daytime - just not quite so much.

“We have to freeze what’s on there now (after the sun goes down) and build the ice back up again,” Osterloh said. “We have the most powerful refrigeration trailer in the world. If this can’t do it, it can’t be done.”

Associate Athletics Director Mark Hollis, who is overseeing the process for MSU, was also miffed by Wednesday’s weather.

“It’s a good day for swimming,” he joked, looking at the swampy rink. “It’s not the heat, it’s the direct sunlight that causes this. This was expected.”

Hollis said crews would be building up the ice thickness and hoping to paint the lines on the ice through this morning.

The rink is still scheduled to be ready for Saturday’s 7:05 p.m. face-off between No. 1 MSU and No. 4 Michigan. A forecaster from the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids said Saturday will be mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and temperatures in the 40s.

But if the weather doesn’t cooperate Saturday, Osterloh and Hollis have backup plans.

“We have a canopy system that we could put over (the rink),” Hollis said. “Or we have a reflective shield we could put down. That’s if we get to some critical stages, but we’re not at that point. Everything’s fine.”

The canopy and shield would be pregame measures and would be taken down before the face-off, Osterloh said.

And while the status of the ice is a major concern, Hollis is also anxious about the staging for a planned laser light show before the game and mini-country music concerts during both intermissions. Both are in preliminary set-up stages.

Other notes from the stadium:

l Two panels from the defunct Munn Ice Arena scoreboard will be in operation at Spartan Stadium for Saturday’s game. They will be on the field in the northwest and southeast corners of the stadium and will display penalty information, which the main stadium scoreboards are not equipped to show.

l The main video board in the south end of the stadium will show the game live and will provide the crowd with instant replays.

James Jahnke can be reached at jahnkeja@msu.edu