The Best Seats
In The House

America’s game is played on diamonds of all shapes and sizes across North America. As one of the continent’s most popular sports, with an estimated 14 million participants in 2017, the need to ensure these spaces are safe for play by participants of all ages could not be more apparent.

While for some of us, grounding balls or catching pop-flies on a dusty old diamond in a former hay field was a rite of passage. For others in larger communities, well-groomed infields, pitching mounds and green outfields are more of what some are accustomed to.

In a game where so much attention is paid to the small round projectile, player safety can become an oversight. As we are in the heat of baseball season, we wanted to take the opportunity to showcase a few products aimed at keeping your diamond and players safe for many seasons to come.

We proudly spent the better part of this week spending time on Canada’s beautiful east coast for an event that many in our industry look forward to, the New Brunswick Association of School Business Officials’ (NBASBO) Annual General Meeting . Acting as a branch of the Association of School Business Officials (ASBO), the New Brunswick affiliate is dedicated to the development of each member by creating professional growth and communication within this fast-paced industry.

With campuses in both Vancouver and Kelowna, the University of British Columbia (UBC) is the province’s oldest and most established post-secondary institution. With a strong background in scientific advancements, the Vancouver campus is located a mere 10km from downtown and is home to roughly 65,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students across its two campuses.

In addition to housing the world’s largest cyclotron in the school’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, it is also home to the Thunderbirds, representing UBC’s student athletes, with teams in football, basketball, soccer, rugby, swimming and baseball. As part of a complete redesign to the Thunderbirds’ baseball park, our team was enlisted through our partners at RecTec Industries to lend a hand with the seating and customized padding for the stadium.

You’ve done your research, tested a few different products, and have finally chosen a heavy-duty vinyl gym floor cover for your facility. During the process, you have assessed the prospective use of the cover, what you expect from it, and are expecting to save thousands in possible damages and perhaps even earn a little extra from your cover during its life.

Choosing the right floor covering system can often be the hardest part, but now that you have the cover in your facility, proper operation is the key to success moving forward.

Located in eastern Nebraska lies the small town of Columbus, an area rich with history and located close to Omaha, the state’s largest city.

Much like Omaha, Columbus was originally a pioneer town, offering early settlers excellent land for crops and access to the Loup and Platte rivers. Today, Columbus is a tight-knit community of roughly 22,000 residents that boasts over 20 city parks and public facilities offering residents the very best the area has to offer.

As part of some upgrades to one of the city’s largest parks, municipal officials reached out to our team through our partners at Crouch Recreation in Nebraska. Dubbed the “picnic capital of Nebraska,” Pawnee Park boasts over 150 acres of space along the Loup River that has become a favourite family location among visitors and residents alike.

Long known as the heart of any school, the gymnasium means much more than a place in which to play sports for many students and members of the community. These facilities are now hubs for meetings, assemblies, athletic competition and community events. As such, more schools and other facilities are quickly recognizing the branding power these areas possess.

In addition to customized flooring, score boards and bleachers, facility operators often look to the permanent wall padding installed on the walls of the gymnasium as a safety precaution as another place where their message, logo or team colours can be presented.

When it comes to planning seating in a gymnasium, available space is the first question that is asked in the process. While most schools and other facilities would love to pack the sidelines of any volleyball or basketball game with cheering fans, it often boils down to what exactly the gymnasium in question can handle.

While many gymnasiums are relatively similar in nature, there are those that are outside of the typical (84’ long and 50’ wide) gymnasium sizes. For those that are larger in nature, larger telescopic bleacher seating is the typical solution. For those that are smaller than standard gymnasiums, however, are met with a few additional challenges. When planning seating structures with limited space, it can become challenging, despite the highly-customizable capabilities our products have.

A little over a year ago, we were enlisted by the Anglophone South District School Board to outfit three of the board’s schools with innovative and customized retractable bleachers. As with many outdated retractable bleacher systems, the existing units were made of wood and were quickly becoming unsafe for both operators and spectators.

As part of the agreement, our team was contracted to remove and dispose of the existing bleachers and replace them with state-of-the-art units, complete with custom colouring and lettering.

As an extension of that project, we were again contacted by the school board to replace some existing bleachers that were approaching the end of their lifecycle.

Built in 1993, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Stadium was originally constructed to house the Ottawa Lynx of the International League.  With staggering attendance numbers through the inaugural season, the stadium and team set league attendance records averaging nearly 10,000 fans per game.

Serving nearly 20,000 students in central Ontario, the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board(HPEDSB) operates 39 elementary schools and eight secondary schools throughout the region.

Several of the schools in the district have been in operation for many years, serving many students who are now working professionals. As such, some of the equipment located within those schools are dated and in some cases, dangerous for students to use.

One such location with a storied past is the Trenton High School. Located in the gymnasium of the school was a large and dated folding partition that had been used to separate the space for a number of years. While the partition did a great job fulfilling its purpose, the unit had become not only cumbersome to operate but downright dangerous.