Floor hockey probably wasn't on the mind of FedEx executives when they built a jumbo-jet hangar at Anchorage's international airport in the early 1990s.

Workers from the 98th Maintenance Company at Fort Richardson install floor hockey sections in the FedEx hangar at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. (Photo by Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News)

But that's exactly what the massive airport building on Postmark Drive will be used for during the next week.

On Friday, 70 men and women from Fort Richardson, as well as many other volunteers, transformed the FedEx hangar into Alaska's largest floor hockey arena for the 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games.

Where a FedEx jet was parked just a day earlier now stand six rinks. Speakers line the hangar's walls. Tents sprout from the parking lot. Workers have even built makeshift entrances and emergency exits to handle the hundreds of athletes and spectators expected to watch the floor-hockey competition beginning Sunday.

"It's like putting together Legos," said Staff Sgt. Karl Aughe as he assembled one of the rink's plastic yellow floors.

He and other volunteers from the 98th Maintenance Company and the Charlie Company's 84th Engineers spent most of Friday erecting the rinks, which were donated by National Bank of Alaska.

The Army's craftsmanship will get its first test today when 53 delegations begin practicing for the eight-day hockey competition, which runs Sunday through March 11, said Todd Heesch, who is coordinating the setup and is in charge of the venue.

Floor hockey is like ice hockey, but without the ice, skates, winged sticks and hard pucks. Players, who wear tennis shoes, carry poles and use a doughnut-shaped puck. They move the puck by inserting their poles through the ring.

It's not the first time the FedEx hangar has played host to floor hockey. It was used last year for the Special Olympics Alaska State Winter Games/World Pre-Games. This year's floor hockey event is much larger, with more than 1,200 athletes, coaches, volunteers and spectators expected to show up.

"It's going to be big," Heesch said.