Investigation continues at Tim Horton’s Field after faulty speakers

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Crews at Tim Horton’s Field in Hamilton are continuing to investigate how a large speaker managed to fall into the stadium’s seats. City officials believe a faulty bracket is to blame, but all of the speakers are being taken down as a precaution.

Rom D’Angelo is the director of Tim Horton’s Field and says it’s fortunate that the speaker fell when it did Monday morning, instead of during a game.

The speakers are about 3 feet by 3 feet, and weigh about 150 pounds which is roughly the size of a bar fridge. It fell about 30 meters and rolled 26 rows and onto the lower bowl of stands, damaging 15 seats along the way. Inspectors have narrowed the problem down to a faulty mounting bracket. Rom says, “We suspect it’s a manufacture defect, we’re looking at all the speakers that had that mechanism on right now.”

As per building code, each speaker is secured by a cable but D’Angelo says it looks like the cable snapped. Matthew Green says, “Certainly, any time you have a speaker falling into an area that could contain people we have very serious concerns, our staff have been double checking and triple checking deficiencies.”

Because of other stadium issues the city of Hamilton is suing stadium builders Ontario Sports Solutions, Infrastructure Ontario and the Pan Am games organizing committee for $35 million in damages. Green said, “Nobody expected it to go off without a hitch, certainly the delays have put pressure on the community, but this risk adds to the deficiencies.”

High winds forced crews to stop working early this afternoon, but city officials expect the speakers to be either taken down or secured by the end of the day tomorrow.