CREDIT: ROB THORPE
Fanshawe athletics welcomes a new flooring design for their main gym floor in preparation for the CCAA Men's Volleyball National Championships.

With the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Men’s Volleyball National Championships drawing closer and closer, Fanshawe Athletics decided to completely renovate the Glenn Johnson Athletic Centre’s floor.

“The gym floor, its life span is seven years before you have to sand it right down and build it right back up and repaint it,” said Nathan McFadden, the manager of Fanshawe Athletics.

Athletics actually waited for eight years because of the construction in and around the gym.

It was Rob Hannivan that came up this amazing idea.

“Rob handles our facilities for us,” McFadden said. “Him and I work very closely together on what we wanted to do to change it.”

McFadden mentioned that Hannivan spent time down at Michigan State taking lots of pictures of their court and athletic centre.

“We got a really good idea from their facility and then had a really good idea what we wanted to do,” McFadden said.

After the renovations were complete, the sidelines were a lot wider. Before they were only three feet and now they are just about five feet, according to the Fanshawe Athletics press release.

“One thing I really wanted was to have a nice rich feel to our gym and we accomplished that by choosing the colour that we did for the court,” McFadden said. “It gives it the nice first class touch to the gym when you look at the floor now.”

“As soon as exams started, we shut down the gym and let those guys do their work, sanding it down, building it up, putting in all the little lines,” McFadden said.

McFadden mentioned that he’s seen Flatout Flooring’s, the company who completed the renovations, previous work and was impressed. They are the ones that put the previous Fanshawe Falcons sticker on centre court last year.

With the new set up athletics hopes to maximize space in the gym to fit lots of people

“This has been a volleyball city long before I got here, they probably will end up turning people away at the door [at nationals]. It will only get more and more packed,” said Patrick Johnston, head coach of the men’s volleyball team. “The gym does have a capacity and they will stick to that as much as they can.”

Athletics is bringing in bleachers from the Hyland Curling Club and those bleachers will be specifically for platinum ticket-reserved seating only.

“If it gets to be past the capacity we will have to turn people away,” McFadden said. “That’s the thing in our packages, the platinum ones are the only ones with reserved seating. Everything else is first come first serve.”

He continued on to say that people coming out to the games need to get to the gym early if you want to watch a Fanshawe match because they are expecting a packed house all throughout the tournament. If you would like to make sure you have a seat saved for yourself, buy a platinum ticket.

“We haven’t picked the exact date yet, but they will get tickets in advance so they don’t have to wait in line for everyone buying tickets.”

The nationals take place from March 8 to 11 with tickets $5 for Thursday and Friday and $10 for Saturday, as it is the day of the last games and then the award ceremony.

To be a platinum ticket holder, it costs $100, but you have access to the Falcons suite whenever throughout the tournament, free pizza on evening Falcons games, access to a cash bar, reserved comfortable seating court side and a fast lane entry by passing everyone in line buying tickets to get in.