Valkyries to bring portable court on road to host first playoff game at SAP Center due to Chase Center conflict
By Juliette Goodrich, Molly McCrea
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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — When the Golden State Valkyries clinched a playoff spot in their inaugural season on September 4, superfan Audacious Wilson from the East Bay was both thrilled and satisfied.
“That was magical! You know, I knew from the start. I was like, ‘No, we’re going to take it and we’re going to go all the way,’ ” she exclaimed, with a big smile.
But “going all the way” also means a change in venue.
Due to a scheduling conflict at Chase Center in San Francisco, the first home game will take place 54 miles south, at the SAP Center in San Jose.
But no worries: all Ballhalla will be there, including the team’s state-of-the-art hardwood court.
The Valkyries’ court is portable. It’s made with interlocking panels that can be taken apart and reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
In a secure loading dock at Chase, 36 pallets containing 400 panels were carefully loaded onto 3 trucks for the journey south.
Each panel weighs about 400 pounds. Once the playoff schedules at SAP are known, a team of 8 to 12 people at SAP will reassemble the court. It takes an estimated 4 and a half hours to put it back together.
“We specialize in situations like this,” Zach Riberdy said.
Riberdy is the spokesperson for Connor Sports.
The company’s manufacturing facility is in Amasa, Michigan. The employees there build about 800 courts a year.
“Every year, we do about 1.2 to 1.3 million square feet of hardwood installed across the country,” Riberdy said.
The Valkyries play on hardwood, built by Connor Sports using a custom chevron pattern.
“As soon as we saw it, we knew it was going to be different. We knew the court was going to be special,” Riberdy said.
But what makes the Connor court even more special is how the company approaches timber harvesting.
“We realized that the number one resource we needed for us to be successful is a living, breathing product that comes from earth,” Riberdy said.
The company makes its playing floors from maple wood. Maple is very durable, very dense, and very hard wood.
“As the company was growing, as the company was becoming more popular, we realized that we couldn’t just go where we wanted to go and cut down trees from wherever we wanted to cut down trees,” recounted the spokesperson.
The company developed ways to use maple more sustainably. They work with several different timber companies and rotate crops and different forests so that there is no overharvesting. In addition, the company says it uses every single piece of wood responsibly.
Connor Sports is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and recognized by several organizations for its zero-waste protocols.
“Nothing goes to waste, and we’re very mindful of that, and we’re also very proud,” Riberdy said.
Those sentiments landed well with Wilson.
“We’re the Bay Area,” Wilson said. “You know we’re about sustainability and creating ways to improve the environment,”
Connor Sports also built the courts for the NCAA Men’s and Women’s final four and March Madness tournaments, as well as the court for the Golden State Warriors.
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