Tennishockey

Precise Measurements of Shane Park

By Jason Zanon

It won't surprise you to learn that the court was poured with something shy of laser-like precision. I measured things at multiple points and they pretty much invariably came off a little bit uneven or oblong. Nor is my measuring probably beyond reproach, as I was going it alone with an oft-uncooperative metal tape measure. Caveats stated... here they are.

I took it as given that the tennis courts are the size of a standard tennis court. All the interior floor measurements were taken from the edge of a pole to the outside edge of the nearest border of the court, or between outside edges of the court borders in the case of the central alley. I figured you can piece things together from there. So I guess the actual court dimensions are less by the thickness of standard chain link. Fah.

First, the goals -- all measurements are from inside edges (i.e., not including the posts)

The north goal (the middle of 11 sections) was 60 1/2" high on the west side, and 61" high on the east side. It was 115 1/2" wide on the bottom and 116" wide on the top.

The south goal was 60 1/4" high on the west side and 59 and X/16" on the east, where X is a number that has smudged. It was 116 1/8" wide on the bottom and 115 1/4" wide on the top.

The vertical posts present a square facade to the court, 1 5/8" across; they are 1 3/16" deep, which doesn't matter in any obvious way.

The horizontal bars are cylindrical, 1 5/8" in diameter.

I couldn't get a definitive height-of-the-wall measurement -- the tape measure just wouldn't cooperate -- so I took randomly-sampled measurements of the upper halves all around the court. It went as low as 55 3/4" and as high as 56 3/4", but virtually all of the measurements clustered around 56 1/4" - 56 1/2".

The west alley (the right side as you face 8th St.) measured 141 3/8" and 141 3/16" at different points from a post.

The east alley was 143" and 141 1/2" ... that spread seems a bit sizable to me, so maybe the 143" was a measuring error.

The central alley was 144 1/16" toward the north and 143 11/16" toward the south.

The distance from an end wall to the court's baseline was, on the north side, 229 15/16" and 228 5/16". On the south side, 224 9/16" and 224 1/8". (despite all the minor variances, this was the only measurement in which the court was notably assymetric ... note also that these are still less accurate than the other measurements because I only had a 16' tape measure, and for these, I had to pick it up and put it down again. Didn't stop me from pretentiously giving you numbers to the sixteenth of an inch, though, eh?)

The one dimension relating to the court itself that I did measure was the poles -- because I've seen them oriented differently on different courts, and I believe at pro tournaments they're not even set outside the line of the doubles court. So it seemed like a variable.

The distance from the outside of the doubles line to the westernmost post was 35 1/2", the same distance (!!!) recorded from the easternmost post to the doubles line. In the center, they were offset by 35 1/4" (the western one) and 35 3/8" (the eastern one).

The posts on the outside are 3 1/2" in diameter, 43 1/2" high metal column topped with a little domey thing that adds another 1/2".

The posts on the inside I have recorded as being 43 1/2" high in total, but I think that must be wrong ... the inside ones are a little taller, I thought. Maybe I'll re-check it. They're also 3 1/2" in diameter though they're topped by some medieval serify thing that's 4 1/4" in diameter.