The Best Seats
In The House

Oftentimes, Sport Systems is approached by clients for a variety of reasons. While new equipment is often requested to replace old or damaged items, there are scenarios in which the update is needed for rebranding purposes. Contacting our team for the latter reason, Central Hastings School determined that new stage and wall padding was in order to help accommodate the transition that the school was undergoing.

When shopping for any type of padding, whether it be for an athletic institution, for use on walls for protection or for tumbling exercises such as gymnastics, you have likely been met with some confusing verbiage.

As each type of padding is filled with a different type of foam, the materials used and the way in which it is constructed can vary widely depending on the intended use of that particular piece of padding.

When reading specifications, the “ingredients” used to describe what they are made of can elicit the feeling of ready obscure ingredients found in some of your favourite foods. For many of us, we are unsure of what exactly they mean, what they are made of and which are good for us.

Two such ingredients found in most of our padding are polyethylene and polyurethane. While somewhat confusing by name, their differences are quite important when selecting padding for your home or facility.  As such, we will break each down below and give a few examples as to which each is best suited for.

At the mouth of the Moira River on the Bay of Quinte in central Ontario lies the town of Belleville.  Settled in the late 1700’s, the town, referred to as the heart of the Quinte region, is home to a number of public elementary and secondary schools along with post-secondary institutions such as Loyalist College and the Academy of Learning College.

It was the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, however, that brought our team to town on this occasion as a pair of the school’s in the board were looking for new wall padding for their gymnasiums.  As such, our sales team quickly were acquainted with keys stakeholders from the organization, kicking off the initial stages of the planning process.

One of our more recent projects brought us to the beautiful Ottawa Valley and one of the area’s epicenters for Irish heritage. Known for its legendary St. Patrick’s Day celebrations each year, the town of Douglas was originally surveyed into farm lots to accommodate settlers from the Irish Isle and soon became a booming region for its timber production.

Today, this small town is part of the Admaston/Bromley Township, which is made up of a number of other small towns and hamlets in the region with a population of roughly 3,000 residents who call it home. 

As one of the feeder schools for these small communities, we were recently commissioned by the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board to supply and install some customized padding for St. Michael’s School. The school acts as an inclusive educational conduit, ensuring high academic standards as well as community involvement for all those who attend.

A great place for organized events, theatre, and assemblies, a gymnasium’s stage is invaluable to the school, community centre or facility in which it resides. When it comes to athletic play and events, these areas can lead to potential injury as high-speed athletes can run into them during practice or play.

To solve this problem, we developed a line of specially designed pads that can easily be installed on stages located within gymnasiums. Made from the same tough and durable heavy-duty vinyl and 2” high-density foam as our wall padding, they are more than enough to keep your students, participants, and athletes safe.

These padding systems are also designed and manufactured with a 6” return which is used to cover the top of the stage surface, used in conjunction with a pair of Velcro strips to secure the padding to the stage or to allow the padding to be removed for special events.