The Best Seats
In The House

Looking west to the beautiful state of California, one of our most recent projects took place to the campus of Columbia College located in the heart of the state’s “Gold Country.”

Named after the miners from Sonora, Mexico who originally settled the city, Sonora maintains its historic charm while modernizing itself with museums, art galleries and a number of theatres. Located a mere 75 miles from Yosemite National Park, Sonora is also an outdoor recreationist’s dream. With access to hundreds of resorts, campground, lakes and National Parks, Sonora provides residents and visitors alike with ample opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors.

Heading indoors, we were contacted by the instructional support technician at Sonora’s Columbia College who was looking for a padding solution to cover the entire gymnasium at the growing college. Kicking off a project that would end up being one year in the making, our team worked closely with key stakeholders at the college to ensure a smooth and efficient experience.

Saint John, New Brunswick was the setting for one of our most recent projects. Our team boarded a plane and headed down to the port city in Canada’s Bay of Fundy, ready to install yet another two banks of retractable seating.

The site was Simonds Secondary School, a member of the Anglophone South School District, with which we have had the pleasure of working with on other occasions.

The large high school, constructed in 1970 at its current location, is home to over 800 students located in the eastern side of Saint John.The facility is comprised of the usual classrooms and lecture halls in many high schools but also features a pool, theatre, weight training facility, pool room, community access centre, technology hub, recording studio, greenhouse and of course, a double-sized gymnasium.

Traveling to the small, yet bustling town of Lindsay, Ontario, our team was on-site to install a pair of telescopic bleacher banks at a local high school.

Located slightly west of Peterborough, Lindsay is home to Fleming College and was crowned as home to the world’s oldest hockey stick which was thought to have been carved just outside of Lindsay between 1852 and 1856 by Alexander Rutherford Sr.  The stick has since been rumoured to have been sold at auction for a whopping $2.2 million and the town also played host to the production team of 1983’s A Christmas Story while scenes were filmed in the small town.

Surpassed only in population by Surrey and Vancouver, Burnaby is beautiful British Columbia’s third largest city and the site of one of our more recent projects.

Working once again in tandem with RecSport, one of our partners in western Canada, we were commissioned to design, supply and install several fixed seats for the city’s Swangard Stadium.

The historic stadium has been a fixture on the Burnaby landscape since it was erected after Vancouver Sun sports journalist, Erwin Swangard raised close to $1 million for the construction in 1969. Since that time, it has played host to many athletic events and served as the home field for the Simon Fraser University football team and was the home pitch of the Vancouver Whitecaps soccer team until 2010.

Heading back down to the United States, our team was recently involved in a project with the Oakland Board of Schools in New Jersey and with our partners at Tri-State Folding Partitions.

Having done business with the Oakland School district for many years, Tri-State has helped a number of schools in the area with annual preventative maintenance on all their equipment, including partitions, bleachers, basketball backstops, and climbing walls.

In addition to the maintenance, their team has also proudly installed a variety of new equipment including basketball hoops, fold-up divider nets, partitions, and wall pads.

On this particular project, the team at Tri-State worked closely with the Principal and head custodian of Manito Elementary School. As part of the Oakland School District in New Jersey, the school serves approximately 350 students in the close-knit community.  Constructed in 1961, the school has only seen three principals tenured in the institution’s front office since its inception, a credit to school’s long-standing commitment to student-focused education.

Bordered by the Chesapeake Bay and the Appalachian Mountains, the state of Virginia or Old Dominion is rich in American history and tradition. One of the original 13 colonies, today the state of Virginia is home to nearly 9 million people and borders the country’s capital, Washington D.C.

One of our most recent projects brought us to Virginia when we were contacted by officials at the Southampton Academy in the southern portion of the state. A private school located in the small town of Courtland, Virginia, Southampton Academy is carving out a piece of history for itself as it continues to gain notoriety as both an educationally and athletically gifted institution.

A common question often fielded by our sales team is “how big of a bench do I need?”  The answer? Well, it’s not always as easy as it seems. Much the same as choosing a bleacher or other seating structure, there is a lot that goes into determining exactly what you might need.

With the development of what is known as the Cross-Ice Hockey; a program recently initiated across both Canada and the United States by their governing hockey bodies, our research and development and design teams have been busy coming up with the best solution to making this program become implemented on a large scale.

What began as a pilot project, Cross-Ice Hockey was instituted and geared toward novice-aged players across North America. Requiring that the ice surface be divided in half,  this allows younger players the time needed to properly develop their skills as well as effectively utilizing available ice space in local arenas.

What they have found so far is that the program keeps younger players in a constant state of involvement in the game and hence, develops better camaraderie among players and enhances on-ice skills.

The strength forged between our organization and those involved in our extensive dealer network is formidable. Selecting from the very best organizations around the world, we have the ability to form partnerships with key industry representatives and pass the benefits along to our growing customer base.

As such, we proudly share our internal leads garnered through our extensive offline and online properties with those selected for our dealer program and one of our recent projects is the perfect example of that synergy at work.

One of our more popular products is our suite of custom wall padding solutions. These solutions range from completely padded rooms and gymnasiums to small padded areas strategically placed in high-impact zones such as beneath basketball goals.

While simple in theory, depending on the intended use of these padding solutions, they can become quite complex and customized. With doorways, corners, electrical outlets and switches all adorning wall surfaces in most buildings, each padding job entails certain nuanced design elements.