Training-Complex Signage Inspires Buffalo Sabres

Since beginning play in the NHL’s 1970-71 season, the Buffalo Sabres have electrified hockey fans in upstate New York with hard-nosed play. Although the team has never claimed the Stanley Cup, such famous ex-players as Dominic Hasek and Dale Hawerchuk have earned a place in hockey’s pantheon.
The team wanted a permanent display for its locker rooms’ interior corridors.

Although the work would seldom be seen by the team’s ardent fans, the graphics would become a source of pride for the team’s players and front office. Frank Cravotta, director of creative services for Hockey Western New York LLC, collaborated with Cannon Design, the architect of the Sabres’ recently updated locker-room and training complex, to design the architectural graphics.

The most prominent exhibit component, the Hall of Fame wall display that commemorates past players and executives, gets TV exposure when the Sabres leave and return to the ice during intermissions or at the end of games. The illuminated team logo also serves as a backdrop for post-game player and coach interviews.

The team officials enlisted the Buffalo franchise of ASI Signage Innovations, which has fabrication facilities worldwide. The “Nickel City” ASI shop, in business since 1980, maintains 22,000 sq. ft. of production and management facilities and employs 33 people.

“We’ve done work for the Sabres before, but this is by far the largest program we’ve ever completed for them,” Andy Bernatovicz, ASI’s account rep for the project, said. “We were the only shop that guaranteed we could meet the team’s accelerated deadline.”

Cravotta provided the graphics in Adobe Illustrator, and the shop perfected the graphics in Illustrator while prepping elements that would be built with the shop’s MultiCam CNC router with SA Intl.’s EnRoute 4 software.

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To craft a display for Sabres whose jersey numbers have been retired, ASI built the letters and numerals in two parts from routed, ½-in.-thick acrylic. The numerals are painted navy-blue and gold (the team’s colors) with Akzo Nobel automotive-grade paint, with players’ names in white. Dates of player inductions were similarly fabricated and painted gray, and the Sabres logo above the numerals was constructed from ¼-in.-thick aluminum and protected with a satin-finish clearcoat.

The numerals are encased within 3/8-in.-thick, clear, polished-edge tempered glass. ASI built metallic swirls within the displays from ½-in.-thick, aluminum box panels, to which it applied Chemetal #414 Nomadic Aluminum laminate. 3M’s VHB tape secures the names and numerals to the glass.

The Hall of Fame display comprises honoree names and photos. The photos were printed on the glass sub-surface using the shop’s Océ Arizona 360 GT UV-cure-ink, flatbed printer. Bernatovicz said each piece of glass was precut, with mounting holes predrilled and cut with a special bonding agent designed to allow the ink to adhere to glass.

“Creating a full bleed was tricky because we didn’t want the spraying ink to clog the printer and impede its function,” he said. “To get around this, we set the glass panels into a custom jig, which allowed the image to bleed off the glass and not interfere with the printer’s function.”

Bernatovicz said the job’s biggest challenge was mounting the glass panels onto a curved wall mere hours before completion was required. Installers had to drill carefully through imported, porcelain wall tile to install the hardware before maneuvering the panels into place. And, of course, they accomplished this while carefully working around other tradesmen also rushing to meet the deadline.

But, the job also included perks. He said, “It was exciting to be behind the scenes working for a team I’ve cheered on for many seasons.” Also, ASI recognized the Buffalo shop with its Best Overall award for 2011, which acknowledged the job as the best work done that year by one of its locations.
 

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