The cool part was as I was trying to find a clean part of the glass to shoot "through" (no port holes), the rink manager came and asked me if I wanted his 10' ladder. He said he'd put it over on the bench side, at the blue line so I coulbd get overhead shots as well as not have to deal with cloudy glass in my way.
Now, for all the PITA that we deal with as photographers, it was a nice change to see someone today who was actually interested in making my job easier. Too bad I couldn't ride the Zamboni!