The Best Seats
In The House

The University of Ottawa’s Gee-Gee’s basketball team has no shortage of legitimate ballers. After winning this year’s Wilson Cup over the rival Carleton Ravens, the men’s team has become a force to be reckoned with.

As with any high-performing team, the equipment they practice and compete with on a daily basis is subject to a lot of wear and tear. Where we see the same equipment last much longer with primary-aged student athletes, the same is not true for college competition athletes playing at such a high level.

In a perfect world, every gymnasium would be identical, making producing the equipment and padding required for these facilities a breeze. What makes our work so fun and meaningful however, lies in the fact that this is not the case in any facility. 

Having worked with thousands of gymnasiums, schools, community centres and post-secondary institutions around the world, we know that no two facilities or projects are alike. Although we love the variety working in this industry provides us, we’ve also grown to have a unique affinity for customized projects. Whether it’s a new set of grandstands for a university, a new basketball system for a community centre or completing a unique padding project, we love taking on a challenge and watching the solution come to fruition.

Serving as home to the Carleton University Ravens hockey teams, one of our recent projects landed us at the $13 million Ice House located on the school’s Ottawa campus. Boasting two NHL-sized ice pads along with twelve amazing dressing rooms, this facility is considered one of the Ottawa area’s best ice hockey facilities. 

With regulations requiring safety netting in NHL and other rinks across North America coming into place over a decade ago, many rinks are still continuing to make improvements to spectator safety. As with many sports, hockey is played with a very high-speed projectile that is capable of doing serious damage once shot out of play.

Since it was established in the 1980s, Dovercourt Recreation has been a staple in serving the National Capital Region with recreational programming for children and community members. In addition to their overall goal of building a healthy, active and engaged community through recreation, it is Eastern Ontario’s first HIGH FIVE accredited organizations.

Currently run by the Dovercourt Recreation Association as part of the City of Ottawa’s recreational programming, representatives from the city reached out to our team with concern about some of the equipment located at the Dovercourt complex.

With the rise in mental health awareness, we welcome opportunities to participate in projects that foster such development. For one of our recent projects, we were proud to have been invited to lead a project at Canada’s largest research facility for mental health and addictions.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is the result of an amalgamation of four separate facilities - the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, the Addiction Research Foundation, and the Donwood Institute. 

A common question we field from customers is determining first, the number of seats needed, and then pairing that number with the proper sized bleacher system.

As a general rule of thumb, we recommend about 18” of space for an individual seat. Meaning for every 18” of space per seating platform, you should attribute one seat. For illustration purposes we will use our 4-Tier Aluminum Bleachers (model: BL-4TB-12DR ), measuring at 144" x 82" x 38" for a total of 576” of total seating space. Divide that number by our standard 18” per person measurement and you are looking at seating for about 32 people. This is an easy calculation to help you assess your seating needs.

Bleacher Sizes            

Here is a quick breakdown of our standard bleachers and sizes (contact us for custom sizes), and please note that all of our bleacher systems feature welded steel frame work for ultimate durability and a virtually maintenance free seating solution:

Image: Daily Telegraph

When we think about the word “condemned”, we often think of derelict properties  and barely standing buildings on the outskirts of town.  In addition to these commonly conjured images, many bleachers get condemned across Canada and the United States each and every year.

With aging schools and equipment, and especially with equipment located outdoors, degredation is a problem that is difficult to avoid. With time and continued exposure to the elements, even aluminum bleachers are subject to breaking down in one way or another. It’s important to keep an eye on your bleachers and the understructure on which they are built. 

We field many questions here on a daily basis and one that comes up more often than most would think, is the difference between Grandstand and Stadium Bleacher seating. This quick article will go over the two setups in detail, including the main differences, draw backs and benefits to each seating system.

Grandstands

Grandstands  are the larger, more complex seating systems when comparing the two. Grandstands may have basic bench seating-but can also feature individual chair back seats. They can sometimes be seen covered with a roof-but are open on the front, can be multi-tiered, have various-sized press boxes and can feature a covered bandstand.

Stadium Bleachers

Bleachers are much smaller than grandstands and are both much more basic and versatile. They consist of raised, tiered rows of benches. Stairways access the horizontal rows at each stair step. Stadium bleachers are commonly found at places like high school baseball fields, softball fields, soccer fields, rodeos and racetracks. 

For one of our recent projects, we were back up in the beautiful Ottawa Valley to once again assist the Renfrew County District School Board with an outdated problem at MacKenzie High School.

As with all things and the natural passage of time, seating structures can degrade and wear out, requiring repair or replacement. Depending on the age of the school, many of these bleacher structures were installed decades ago and have since become inoperable or just plain unsafe to operate. 

Having completed a number of projects in the beautiful state of Nebraska, we returned for another job, this time  in the state’s Capital city of Lincoln. Originally named Landcaster, the city was renamed in 1869 after the great President Abraham Lincoln. In that same year, the University of Nebraska was established in Lincoln and today remains the largest university in the state, serving nearly 30,000 students.

Our partners at Crouch Recreation in Omaha, brought us yet another opportunity in the Cornhusker State, this time at an established Christian school in neighbouring Lincoln. With a history dating back to the 1950s, Lincoln Christian School has been serving local families and the community with faith-based education for decades, currently boasting nearly 900 students and over 80 faculty members.