A gymnasium floor that was home to high school gym classes, Friday night dances and Saskatoon’s largest basketball tournament is getting a new home.
The wooden floor from Bedford Road Collegiate gym floor will welcome visitors to the new location of Brainsport - The Running Store and Pedestrian Shoe Fitting thanks to Brian Michasiw, a Bedford Road alumnus.
When Michasiw saw the gym floor was being ripped up, he needed to have it.
"Lots of school dances on that floor, lots of running on that floor, a little basketball. I thought it was just so fitting that I had to make it happen,” Michasiw said.
The school is renovating its gym and replacing the floor. The school unveiled its new team name, Redhawks, earlier this month. It discontinued the school’s Redmen name and Indian head logo, which was at centre court.
Michasiw says his plan to get the floor has nothing to do with the logo, and it won't be on the floor in his new store. His vision is to re-arrange the gym floor to make a random pattern after he got the idea from a Nike store in Boston when he was there to run the marathon.
"They put it down randomly so the lines from the floor made a pattern and I thought it looked incredibly cool.”
Michasiw says the school was going to throw out the old floor but decided to give some of it to him and some others for free.
"After a couple phone calls i convinced them that we wouldn't impede anything and it would be a really good recycling story,” he said.
Getting the gym floor ready for the store is no easy task. Michasiw has to pry 2x4s from the floor, grind off the nails, and scrape down the pieces. He says it will all be worth it when he sees the final product in the new Brainsport store, which he hopes to have open in September.
