The Best Seats
In The House

It certainly feels like just yesterday we were reviewing our projects from 2015 and thanking our suppliers, customers and partners for everything they helped us achieve during what was a banner year for our organization.

Once again in 2016, the story remains the same.  We again had a historic year in 2016, marking tremendous growth, new opportunities, expanded operations and a robust customer base.  As wonderful as all of those are, we still could not have done it without each and every member of our esteemed team, those with whom we have conducted business with during our 35+ year history and all of our partners around the world.

We once again were named among Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2016’s PROFIT 500 – a feat we have achieved three out of the last four years.   We want to thank everyone, once again, for their support this past year and we sincerely look forward to connecting with you and many new organizations in the coming year.

As promised, here are a few of our most notable projects we had the pleasure of completing in 2016:

Comprising of four divisions, one of our more recent projects had us working closely with key stakeholders from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in conjunction with our esteemed colleagues at Tri-State Folding Partitions.

The 135-year-old educational institution’s divisions are made up of the Ethical Culture, Fieldston Lower, Fieldston Middle and Fieldston Upper divisions spread across two distinct campuses.  The midtown Manhattan campus is the home of the Ethical Culture program which helps students develop a level of understanding across multiple perspectives, developing imagination and fostering habits such as justice, fairness and empathy.

In nearby Bronx, New York, lies the 18-acre campus that is home to the remaining three divisions of the academic organization.  Here, the Fieldston Lower program fosters students from Pre-K to 5^th grade, the Fieldston Middle offers programming for middle school-aged students and is completed with the high school curriculum of Fieldston Upper.

Our custom padding department may very well be one of our more far-reaching departments within our company.  Aside from the traditional athletic applications we have been known for over 35 years, our padding product selection and capabilities go far beyond that.

While we still provide custom padding for gym walls, columns, stages and rinks, our out-of-the-box thinking and training systems have allowed us to enter a variety of other markets. 

One such area of development from which we have experienced tremendous growth is from within the animal care and transportation sector.  As many us can relate, animals big and small mean a great deal to those of us who care for them as pets, in a commercial environment or as a hobby.  We recently launched our line of padding solutions, each custom designed for veterinary practices and applications containing solutions for animals both big and small.

While generally left for our padding department professionals, many of our customers and end users actually opt to perform their own custom cut-outs on their newly-ordered wall padding.  In the event of forgotten electrical switches, altering existing padding is a very viable option for many and not terribly difficult to undertake.

The name of the game is patience.  As with any custom work, slow and steady typically wins the race and in this case, saves you from having to order additional pads or replacement vinyl for improperly cut holes.   As many contractors will tell you, measure twice, cut once. 

Located in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, The Tech Academy is an educational facility founded on artistic, athletic and academic excellence, offering students a unique opportunity to prepare for further education. 

The institution is housed in a historic building, adding to the educational establishment’s charm and prestige.  The academy serves students ranging from grades 9-12 with courses offered in the arts, music, business, Canadian and world studies, English, French, mathematics, health and physical education, science, social science and more.

With goals of increasing physical activity in Ontario, the province created the Ontario Sport and Recreation Communities fund in 2013.  Since the program’s inception, it has supported over 400 projects province-wide, aiding over 425,000 residents in getting involved in physical activity.

The backbone of the program is predicated on embedding physical literacy as a foundation for lifelong physical activity among individuals of all ages.  In addition to strengthening the community sport and recreation sector by providing training in key areas such as coaching, youth development and volunteer development, the program provides residents with additional opportunities to remain physically active.  This also applies to those who experience barriers to participation and those who might be traditionally less active.

Once again, we were hard at work at the prestigious Julia Dyckman ANDRUS Center in Yonkers, New York.  Earlier in the fall, we were involved in padding two other rooms located in the facility with the help of our partners at Tri-State Folding Partitions.

In that project, our team designed a complete padding solution for a small support room in the facility that had to accommodate an existing playhouse and structure previously installed in the room.

With that project in the rear view, our team once again got to work for ANDRUS, this time on a much larger sensory room.  These rooms are used to create an environment completely removed from outside distractions and come complete with audio and visual aids, promoting extreme relaxation.

A project nearly a year in the making came to fruition this fall as our team was busy designing a set of seating banks that were quite different than most.  In December of 2015, we were approached by Sublime Architecture who had a client in need of a very unique and customized retractable bleacher product.

Naturally, our team took the task at hand and quickly got to work with both the architecture firm and the end user.  The product was to be installed and utilized at Cégep Garneau, a public academic institution located in Quebec City.  Currently speaking, approximately 6,000 students call Cégep Garneau home as they embark on a two-year study program that is in place to better help students in the province of Quebec prepare for post-secondary education.

With snow flurries in the forecast, winter is upon us (most of us anyways) and with that comes the busy season in hockey rinks and ice surfaces across Canada and the United States.

As the fastest game on ice, hockey is also considered to be one of the most high-impact sports on the planet and with good reason.  In addition to quick-moving skaters and errant hockey sticks, the game is centred on a gliding puck that at times, can be travelling at over 100 miles per hour.

While the majority of hockey rinks are equipped with boards and proper spectator protection using heavy-duty glass, the risk of spectator injury in the game is still rising due to deflected pucks.  With up to 12 sticks being on the ice at any time, the risk for a deflected puck to clear the boards and head into the crowd was and is still, very high.  In fact, it was not until 2002 that the National Hockey League finally made a ruling stating that all ice surfaces were to be equipped with additional netting surrounding both goals above the height of the glass.

With the rise of both personal fitness and the popularity of shows such as American Ninja Warrior, more and more people are getting active and challenging themselves in ways they might not have thought possible.  In additional to grueling endurance, participants of this type of exercise are strong, fast and rely on quick decisions.

As they are faced with numerous challenges, participants often race through a series of obstacles on a course, and the fastest time usually wins.