The Best Seats
In The House

Most of us have accepted it; winter is officially on its way and before we know it, the snow will start flying. With professional hockey season now underway, along with thousands of other recreational leagues across North America, arena facility operators are evaluating the condition of their hockey nets.

While most might assume it best to upgrade existing hockey goals, nets and fenders before the hockey seasons begin, sometimes that just is not possible. With so many arenas hosting hockey leagues and other events all year round, it is getting harder and harder to find a facility that actually experiences a great deal of downtime on the ice.

Whether it is a psychological cue due to the changing weather, the fact is this time of year is when we typically see an increase in requests from our ice-loving hockey and arena facility operators. This is also a time when many new builds are finally completed before the frost and newly founded arenas are in search of officially sized and professional-quality hockey goals and nets.

Riding on the wish of a local young woman with developmental disabilities, Augusta Street Park in our hometown of Almonte, Ontario, received a much need facelift. Sarah Spinks’ request was a simple one: to play basketball with her friends at the local outdoor basketball court closely situated to her home.

Earlier this month her wish was not only granted but exceeded. NBA Canada and Bell Canada stepped up and provided funding in the form of a US$19,780 grant, through a program spearheaded by Jeff Mills and his community-focused organization, Mills Community Support. In addition to the grant mentioned above, local organizations, The Hub and the Almonte Civitan, pitched in approximately $9,000 collectively to make this local wish a reality.

As we all know, the safety of our participants, staff members and spectators is always priority number one with facility managers and operators. With so many moving parts, different pieces of equipment and a variety of users, there is a great deal of monitoring and maintenance that goes into the smooth operation of any athletic facility.

In addition to routine maintenance, there are a number of products on the market today that are designed and manufactured to add another level of safety to the already well-designed equipment found in most gymnasiums. Here are a few products we have handpicked as recommendations for your gymnasium moving forward:

Our most recent project brought us to the Township of Sables-Spanish Rivers, a quaint community nestled between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The township is situated in the foothills region of Lake Huron’s North Shore and was officially incorporated in 1998.

The site of the project landed us at the Massey & District Community Centre, which encompasses a standard-sized baseball diamond, a fully enclosed outdoor basketball court, a single arena ice rink pad with full canteen service, as well as a licensed hall with a full kitchen for special events and rentals.

The township called on us to aid them in updating the bleacher seating located inside the ice rink before the upcoming hockey season began. The existing arena bleachers were out of date and unfortunately no longer compliant with recent updates in the Ontario Building Code. After the details were received, our designers got to work designing the new bleachers to be installed at the community centre. Some customization was needed as the new bleacher structure had to be notched out around the columns of the pre-engineered building.

We all lead busy lives and at times, months, maybe even years seem to pass rather quickly. For facility managers, there are just so many moving parts to a gymnasium or other athletic facility that overtime, certain pieces of equipment might be overlooked.

It is no secret that the wall padding inside your gymnasium plays a very important role in the safety of those who use it. High speed sports such as basketball often have players bumping into wall surfaces as they pivot to get back in the game. These wall pads can also turn out to be quite versatile to many facility operators. When equipped with a removable wall padding product, individual slab mats are easily taken down for other uses such as gymnastics, wresting and other exercises.

But, at what point should you consider replacing your gym wall padding?

The answer to that question is not always apparent as there are many factors to be considered when evaluating the condition of your current padding:

Located in Belleville, Ontario, our most recent project landed us at Bayside Secondary School. As a member of the Hastings & Prince Edward District School Board (HPEDSB), Bayside prides itself on academic, artistic and athletic programming paired with a heavy involvement in their local community.

Bayside Secondary School resides on a 200-acre campus, the largest in North America, which includes a quarry, wooded trails, extensive athletic playing fields, as well as a picturesque shoreline on the Bay of Quinte. The school is also home to HPEDSB’s French Immersion program and also offers a number of other specialty programs including International Studies, Communications Technology and EcoBound.

When we think of gym mats or padding, we often come to the same conclusion; that all gym mats are created equal. For most of us, our experience with gym mats came in our younger years, most likely in elementary school or in high school and those of us without any extensive martial arts or wrestling training, will never know that there is much more out there in terms of gym matting.

When selecting a gym mat, there is a surprisingly large amount of variety, customization and options available to buyers. While choosing a standard blue gym mat is quite routine, when facilities, training centres and specific programs get involved, choosing the right foam and filler can make or break a good mat. Here are the varieties of foam and filler we use in our line of gym and athletic mats:

As the summer months came to an end, our fall season immediately kicked into gear. While we are still completing the last few large-scale outdoor projects, we now begin to see more indoor-focused purchases such as basketball equipment, volleyball systems and a variety of wall and custom padding projects.

Our most recent project came to us out of the beautiful province of Quebec in historic Montreal. One of the city’s most prominent rehabilitation centres was in the market for some very specialized wall padding for a particular room in one of its many locations around the city.

The client was Le Centre de Réadaptation en Déficience Intellectuelle et en Troubles Envahissants du Développement de Montréal (CRDITED). An institution in the health and social services network, CRDITED provides specialized services for adaptation and rehabilitation for over 4500 people with intellectual disabilities and with autism spectrum disorder.

Our most recent project brought us to the picturesque town of Brockville in southeastern Ontario. Located in the heart of the 1000 Islands and St. Lawrence Seaway, Brockville is home to many services and amenities that can be found in a large city, but still manages to maintain its undeniable hometown charm.

The site of our recent bleacher installation was at one of the city’s main recreation complexes and parks. Memorial Park belongs to the Memorial Park Recreation Complex which, has one of two arenas in the area and is home to the Brockville Braves Junior A Hockey Club and the Brockville Tikis Junior B Hockey Club. The ice surface at the complex is in use between the months of September and April of each year and in the off-season, is used by community groups for trade fairs, multi-cultural events, dog shows and other special events.

We specialize in a variety of different padding applications, where no two jobs ever seem to replicate one another. Our custom padding department is one of our most complex divisions as every surface, window, door, and angle must be taken into account during the design process.

We utilize the very best in technology and match it with our award-winning team members, each with years of experience in the custom padding field. While our padding department is deeply involved with many athletic-focused projects, in recent years we have witnessed our padding business grow exponentially into other niche markets.