The Best Seats
In The House

Small arenas, community rinks, and municipal recreation facilities face unique challenges when it comes to indoor spectator seating. Space constraints, accessibility requirements, budget considerations, and the need for durable, long-lasting performance all come into play. Despite the challenges surrounding arena seating, aluminum bleacher seating stands out as one of the most reliable options for these environments, offering strength, low maintenance, and flexible configurations that fit tight footprints all while meeting modern codes.

Whether you manage an institutional sports facility or work for a municipal recreation department, investing in quality aluminum bleacher seating delivers better sightlines, enhanced comfort, and full compliance with major building and safety codes as well as accessibility requirements.

Working, once again, alongside our long-standing dealer and installer Interior Visions in New Brunswick, we recently completed another successful gymnasium bleacher upgrade. This time, the project took place at St. Mary’s Academy in Edmunston, part of the Anglophone West School District.

The school needed to replace their old wooden telescopic bleachers, which were manually operated and had become outdated. Upgrading aging bleachers is a common request we receive from schools across Canada, and our experienced team, and in this case, supported by a strong dealer network, is well-equipped to deliver reliable, modern solutions that improve safety, comfort, and ease of use for years to come.

In yet another great addition to our team, Sport Systems is pleased to announce that Doug Fidelak has recently come on board as our new Western Region Sales Manager. Based out of his home office in the Edmonton area, Doug’s role will focus on expanding our presence and impact across Western Canada.

In multi-sport gymnasiums where students of all ages participate in physical education the walls and structural columns, in most cases, have the ability to be silent hazards. A split-second loss of balance or an aggressive play can send an athlete into unforgiving concrete, cinder block, or steel, often resulting in unnecessary injury.

With student and athlete safety being of chief concern, the solution for these types of risks is not generic mats or some form of afterthought padding. In today’s high-impact environments, it is a custom gym safety padding solution that includes precision-engineered wall padding and column protection designed specifically for the unique layout, usage patterns, and safety requirements of modern multi-sport facilities.

With decades of experience in custom padding solutions, we invite you to use this article to explore why and how custom approaches outperform standard options, how they address critical safety and compliance needs, and what institutional facility managers should consider when specifying impact protection for their gymnasiums.

We’re no strangers to a unique challenge and when it comes to designing and installing custom arena bleachers, we’ve always got a few tricks up our sleeve. This tends to serve us well, especially when the project combines innovative seating with full accessibility in a brand-new community facility — which was exactly the case in one of our most recent projects.

Working closely with our First Nations is something we’ve been doing for a number of years now and on this project, we were proud to partner with the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation. Construction on their new Nawash Community Arena in Neyaashiinigmiing, Ontario kicked off last summer and was supported by generous contributions from Bruce Power and Kinectrics. The arena is set to serve as a vibrant year-round hub for hockey, lacrosse, and community gatherings, featuring an ice pad, changerooms, concession areas, accessible washrooms, and more.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Khrush Rahman as our new Design/Engineering Manager. With his deep expertise and leadership experience, Khrush joins our team at a pivotal time as we continue to scale our capabilities in custom grandstand and complex bleacher systems for schools, arenas, and athletic facilities across North America.

We were once again called upon to solve a familiar challenge faced by many schools across North America. In the case of outdated folding partitions installed to separate gym space many years ago, they often become expensive to maintain, unreliable for daily use, and in some cases even pose safety concerns.

Mother Teresa High School in Barrhaven, Ontario was in such a position and needed a smarter, more economical way to divide their gymnasium space while keeping the flexibility required for multiple classes and activities. Replacing the old folding partition with a new one would have been disruptive and costly, likely leading to the same maintenance issues in the future. Instead, the school turned to our team for a better long-term solution.

From daily physical education and sports practices to assemblies, graduations, concerts, and community events, school gymnasiums serve a variety of purposes. When it comes to effectively utilizing these types of multi-use spaces, the right bleacher seating system can often make all the difference.

When it comes to indoor seating options, telescopic bleachers (also known as retractable or folding bleachers) are the most popular choice for schools. These systems slide out for events and retract compactly against the wall when extra floor space is needed, making them far more practical than fixed seating or portable benches for busy school environments.

Working just down the road from our beautiful headquarters, we got the opportunity to take part in the development of a brand new educational facility. While we are not involved with the heavy-duty construction elements of a job like this, we were invited to participate in outfitting the gymnasium space with some brand new and state-of-the-art equipment.

After selecting a fairly comprehensive sports equipment package, our team was on-site and planning for this new gymnasium as part of the expansion of the Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario (CEPEO) here in the Ottawa area.

Aside from rising temperatures, sprouting flowers and green grass, another sure sign of Spring in Canadian communities, at least in our world, is freshly installed outdoor bleachers.

With the spring season officially in full swing, we’ve just completed another successful municipal project, this time for the Township of South Frontenac. This year, we supplied and installed our popular Gold Series bleachers at Point Municipal Park in beautiful Sydenham, Ontario.

Each of these Gold Series bleachers safely seats 50 spectators, providing comfortable, durable seating that will serve the community for years to come.