When most Portlanders think of the Moda Center, they think of it as a basketball arena.

They might first think "Rose Garden," but after that it's the Blazers and their hardwood court.

But the Moda Center can be many different things. It's a hockey arena, a concert venue, and this weekend, a monster truck playground.

Goodbye hardwood and ice. Hello 2,000 tons of dirt.

A team of 14 dump trucks from Vancouver's Taylor Transport Inc. began filling the arena with dirt Thursday in preparation for the weekend's Monster Jam show. Mike Leboki, the man in charge of the fleet, said the trucks would drop about 150 loads onto the arena's concrete base floor by the end of the day.

Crews from Monster Jam will begin building the event's biggest-ever Moda Center track Friday. But before an event like this can happen, the arena's own crew has much to do.

It starts by disassembling the Blazers' basketball court, a task assigned to the Moda's overnight conversion crew. Depending on how quickly a change needs to occur, said Rose Quarter Event Manager Brooke Farris, up to 40 people will work through the night to break up and stack the floor's rectangular pieces.

Courtside and other low-elevation seats get pushed into the concrete walls, creating a pit for monster trucks and bull riders to get wild without landing in a spectator's lap.

And on the occasion that the basketball court has been built on top of the Winterhawks' ice rink, which Farris said happens fairly often, the insulating barrier between them needs to be removed and the ice melted. A network of pipes circulating cold or hot fluid through the concrete floor can freeze or melt the ice quickly enough for an overnight transition.

Once the ice turns to water and the floor below it dries out, it's ready for whatever the Moda Center's schedule requires next.

But there's little rest for the people of the overnight conversion crew. Farris said they'll be working to rebuild the ice rink as soon as the monster truck engines rumble to a stop Sunday.

Check back at OregonLive Saturday for live coverage and photos of Monster Jam 2016.

--Dillon Pilorget

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