JULY/AUGUST 2005

When it comes to sports and recreation surfaces, what's underfoot can make or break everything else in a facility. If it's the wrong flooring, it can all go downhill from there. But the right choices, made after careful research and assessment, can make all the difference. We look at factors to consider, profile facilities and provide information to help facility managers make the best surfacing decision.

An ice arena could be ailing, and you might not even realize it. We offer an easy checkup, complete with tips to make the facility healthier—financially, physically and recreationally.

Focusing on extended play: Treated to attractive, stimulating equipment since birth, today's playground consumers—kids—have become a tough sell. We look at the latest designs and trends that even will keep older kids coming back to playgrounds and fight the "too cool to play" syndrome.

Aquatic venues are exceptional avenues for people to achieve healthy pursuits. Yet the water environment also brings unique hazards, including drowning, recreational water illness, diving injury, suction entrapment, electrocution, and slip-and-fall injuries.

What about long-term excitement when it comes to splash play areas? With most manufacturers offering a "pick your part" service, you're invited to mix and match components and assemble an attractive splash play area. This approach may result in short-term excitement for the community. However, unless the products have been carefully selected with users in mind, the novelty may be short-lived.

Composting toilet systems are an environmentally sound, practical alternative to flush, vault and portable facilities. There's no water wasted for flushing, pollution caused by sewers and septic systems is reduced, and composting toilet systems allow you to put nutrients back where they belong, in the soil, not in the water.

Skateboard—the word alone may send chills up your spine if you have been impacted by this sports trend. The increased popularity of skateboarding has created new challenges and issues for our society to address.

Hastings, Neb., can be considered a small city capable of creating big noise, especially when it comes to game night in the Lynn Farrell Arena at Hastings College. The 79,000-square-foot arena is quite unique considering the facility not only meets the needs of a growing athletic program but also provides additional classroom space without constructing a stand-alone classroom building.

What does Australia have to do with Santa Clara, Calif.?

The desert-filled Down Under continent provides the theme for, ironically, a new waterpark at Paramount's Great America. While plenty of amusement parks around the country have waterparks within them, Paramount's Great America was California's first foray into combining the two under one admission price.