The Best Seats
In The House

Once again we found ourselves in the state of New York for one of our recent projects.  Located in Yonkers, The Julia Dyckman Andrus Center or ANDRUS is a private, non-profit organization that specializes in teaching children and families the skills to express and cope with strong emotions.  Providing childcare, home visiting, mental health services, residential treatments, and special education programs, ANDRUS aims to be a national leader in shaping policies and practices that give children and families the skills required to overcome challenges and adversity.

In the construction phase of their new facility, key stakeholders within the organization reached out to us in an attempt to secure a custom wall padding solution for a pair of rooms inside the facility.  As with any complete wall padding project, the nature of the project requires an on-site visit to really understand the complexities of the rooms and prospective padding.

With Labour Day weekend in our rear-view, we have now passed the unofficial end of summer.  While summer does not technically end for another couple of weeks, and as kids head back to school and we get on with our regular routines, now is a great time to plan ahead for the coming winter months.

Up here in Canada and in many places in the United States, winter sports such as hockey, ringette, figure skating, speed skating and skiing are popular pastimes as temperatures begin to drop.  With that in mind, many rink owners and operators are busy planning their busy season, ensuring their facility and equipment is ready to roll when the snow begins to fly.

Sure, we do a lot of work in the athletic and sports industry.  Our company name and tagline firmly reflects it.

While we do handle a great deal of projects in the athletic industry varying from municipalities, colleges, universities to private athletic institutions, our products can be found in more places than most might think. As we continue to establish our growing brand and reputation, we are constantly moving the needle on the expansion of our stellar product line.  As our selection and capabilities grow, not only are we able to serve more of our traditional customers, we are able to expand our offerings into new industries and sectors.

With that in mind, here are five areas in which we operate our business that many of our customers might be surprised to hear us being involved in. 

Founded in 2009, Fieldhouse Athletics and the Fieldhouse Pirates Baseball Club is a premier high-performance baseball development program located in Canada for U.S. college-bound baseball players.

Offering players access to year-round development and training from experienced coaches, the program fields 13U, 14U, 16U and 18U baseball teams and will soon be the first Ontario-based club to field 10U and 11U teams as well.

Their state-of-the-art training facility is where baseball dreams come true.  Inside, players make use of the MLB spec clay pitching mound, pitching machine tunnels, laser-timed 60-yard dash area, long-toss throwing lanes and a 5-toll video analysis centre.

While we do complete a large portion of projects designed solely for athletic use for municipalities, educational and private institutions, our reach is much broader than that. In addition to our work we traditionally complete within the athletic industry, another large portion of our business is the design and manufacture of padding and other safety solutions for commercial applications.

Our most recent project brought us to the state of New York where a global company was in need of some custom-designed padding solutions for use at the commercial location.  This company specializes in the engineering, design and manufacturing of high precision mechanical components, assemblies, gears and motion control solutions.  Their global reach includes some of the most recognizable names in the medical, aerospace and industrial markets.

One of our more recent, multi-facility projects brought us to the picturesque Ottawa Valley, just west of Canada’s capital region. Encompassing two school boards in the region, a number of schools have been operating with padding that no longer is deemed safe for use under current guidelines.

This project had us working at five different schools in both the Renfrew County District School Board and within the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board. The schools range in locations scattered throughout the Ottawa Valley starting in Arnprior and working up the line in schools in the Petawawa area.

Sport Systems was commissioned to remove the out-dated existing padding from each of the five schools as the pads no longer met the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association (OPHEA) guidelines. In addition to the removal of the existing padding, the school boards also ordered a number of replacement pads for multiple locations within the schools. The padding installation locations varied from school to school, but the bulk of the padding ordered was for use as protective wall padding in the gymnasiums of the school. The remainder of the padding was designed for use on stages and bleacher seating sections for additional safety for both spectators and participants.

What has been somewhat of a topic of debate for a number of years is the amount of wall padding that is required within gymnasiums and other athletic facilities. Today, there remains no governing body outlining specific standards, but there have been many opinions formed on the subject.

Our recommendation is that there is always up to 10 feet of unobstructed space surrounding a basketball court and that wall padding is installed in high-speed areas such as below basketball goals at a maximum of four feet above the playing surface.

With this in mind, one of our most recent projects had us designing, manufacturing and installing a number of customized wall pads for use in a number of community centres.

The City of Vaughan was the location of this project, situated just north of Toronto with a population of over 320,000 people. The municipality encompasses the communities of Concord, Kleinburg, Maple, Thornhill and Woodbridge and was officially incorporated as a city in 1991. The city put this project out to tender which Sport Systems successfully secured, and then got to work designing the perfect padding systems for their community centres.

With the rapid expansion of trampoline parks across North America, we have added an additional arm to our padding business. What was once a group of a few hobbyists, is now a complete industry with many markets offering multiple locations of trampoline parks.

Traditional features of these parks are large indoor spaces with wall-to-wall trampolines for users of all ages to enjoy. These facilities range in size and can be anywhere from 10,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet, allowing users to jump, twist and flip in a controlled environment.

Our most recent project came to us from Emerald Park, Saskatchewan, home of Boomers Air Park. The facility measures over 12,500 square feet and features floor trampolines, wall trampolines, foam pits, light shows and a fantastic sound system designed to provide their clientele with a healthy form of fun. After your bouncing session, take a break in the park’s food court or lounge area adorned with big screen TV’s for your enjoyment.

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.