Sports & Arena Archives | Cerami & Associates

June 9, 2025 by Victor Camara

The Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) is the world’s first stadium with a fully retractable roof. The 52,000-seat venue is home to the Toronto Blue Jays and the Toronto Argonauts.

Valcoustics, a Trinity Consultants company, provided acoustic consulting services under the leadership of EllisDon. Throughout the various phases of the project, our team reviewed multiple aspects of the design, including interior room acoustics for the main stadium and broadcast booths, sound isolation of the hotel façade adjacent to the rail corridor, structural floor vibration within portions of the hotel, and exterior (environmental) noise control.

Valcoustics also assessed sound transfer through the open roof—addressing crowd noise and amplified sound from the electronic sound system—to ensure minimal noise impact on neighbouring communities.

June 9, 2025 by Victor Camara

Scotiabank Arena—formerly the Air Canada Centre—is Canada’s premier sports and entertainment venue and home to the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL) and Toronto Raptors (NBA). The 20,000-seat multipurpose arena has earned more than 40 industry awards for its excellence in security, accessibility, fan experience, environmental leadership, and box office operations.

Valcoustics, a Trinity Consultants company, provided acoustical consulting for the arena, which offers a vibrant mix of restaurants and retail spaces designed to elevate the fan experience—whether watching the Raptors or attending a live concert.

Since opening, Scotiabank Arena has welcomed over 39 million fans to more than 2,600 events, including NHL and NBA playoff games, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, NBA All-Star Weekend, and countless other major sports and entertainment performances.

June 9, 2025 by Victor Camara

While the New York Rangers play their home games at Madison Square Garden, most day-to-day operations are based at their Training Facility in Greenburgh, NY. This is where players practice and train, and where coaches and managers make critical team decisions—prompting the Rangers to engage Cerami for acoustical consulting services.

Our goal: enhance speech privacy in the coaches’ and GM offices and improve speech intelligibility within the practice rink.

For the offices, the team required privacy levels ranging from “excellent” to “highly confidential,” as conversations often involve sensitive player matters. Additionally, noise from the adjacent players’ lounge and weight room regularly disrupted management discussions.

In the practice rink, excessive reverberation impaired communication. We recommended installing sound-absorptive hanging baffles across at least 50% of the ceiling to improve clarity. These baffles also provide aesthetic flexibility, with a wide variety of colors and patterns available.

June 9, 2025 by Victor Camara

The Madison Square Garden Transformation project is a multi-phased gut renovation of the entire arena. The project included the complete replacement of all core technology infrastructure and systems, including broadcast cabling, audiovisual, LAN/WAN, voice/data, physical security, building automation, scoring/timing, scoreboard display, TV display, distributed antenna, wireless, infrastructure, and network facilities and systems. All systems throughout the venue are connected via a single converged IP network, delivering significantly more content and functionality than in any other venue, to both optimize the systems for entertainment and exceed NBA & NHL requirements.

The main goal of the project was to provide infrastructure that would accommodate current needs, but be flexible and robust to accommodate future technologies as they evolve without the need to fully close the arena.

Close coordination was required between MSG Facilities, Operations, IT, Media, Broadcast, Security, and communications departments to achieve and maintain consensus relative to system capabilities, design requirements, performance requirements, and procurement and implementation strategies. Additionally, our principal worked alongside marketing and sales groups to integrate sales/sponsorship opportunities with system and vendor requirements.

September 13, 2023 by Victor Camara

The Paulson Center is a 735,000 square feet state-of-the-art multipurpose building spanning a full New York City block between Houston, Mercer and Bleecker Streets. This campus merges learning and community into one structure. It is home to more than eight floors of academic space, sports complex, performing arts theaters, practice/instructional rooms, expansive commons, and housing for freshmen and faculty.

What made this massive development incredibly challenging was the rapid progression of technology over the years. It was paramount for us to keep up with the latest equipment and ensure the building infrastructure worked with the technology of today. Furthermore, with its many uses and spaces, the Paulson Center brought forth a mix of acoustical challenges. Cerami helped NYU navigate these challenges with acoustical and technology designs that optimized teaching and learning environments for all students and faculty.

Signature Solution: This urban campus is essentially multiple buildings glued together, each operating with their own independent technology systems. Security devices are seamlessly integrated within the glass architecture to provide an elevated level of security. Robust IT infrastructure capable of supporting the migration to future technology are implemented throughout. Unique audiovisual solutions are employed for the classrooms, residences, amenities and athletics facilities.

The classrooms are all designed to be flexible and reconfigurable, each with systems that support hybrid learning and operates AV over IP technology. This enables students and faculty to easily share and switch content to any displays across over 50 classrooms within the building! The common areas are strategically designed to foster connection between people and encourage interactions among NYU’s diverse community. Furnished with kiosks that enable digital signage and wayfinding, as well as ceiling speakers for playing background music and broadcasting events, the lobbies offer wide open spaces and seating for students to find respite from the hustles and bustles of the campus. Open lounges scattered throughout the building are perfect places for individual or group work, preparing for a class, or catching up with friends and colleagues. Some lounges even feature large LED displays and speakers dedicated for movie screenings. One of the highlights of the sports complex is the four-court gym which can be used simultaneously and independently and can accommodate a multitude of programs, functions, and events. Each court is equipped with large video displays used for hyping content and game replays, ceiling mounted cameras that track the movements of players, and advanced audio and sound systems, including ceiling hung, large line array speakers that you can find in Madison Square Garden!

Acoustics matter everywhere especially for a structure that sits above a busy New York City MTA subway line. To reduce the trains’ noise and vibration impact to the building, we incorporated isolation materials at the columns and foundation walls. The custom curtain wall acts as a barrier to keep traffic noise out and not a nuisance to the classrooms and housing. The instructional spaces and quiet/focus areas are further furnished with acoustically absorptive finishes such as acoustic ceilings, stretched fabric systems, and fabric wrapped panels to maximize speech intelligibility and create comfortable spaces for studying and learning. Diverse sound reduction techniques are employed to the athletics center to ensure students will never hear what’s behind closed doors – from floating floor construction to robust walls and doors, to isolated ceilings – these features will help avoid noise transfer between spaces.

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