By Travis Webb
They gather around Bob Jessome like soldiers around a general.
He stands taller than six feet, but it isn’t his physical presence that demands attention. It’s his booming voice.
“Alright everybody, listen up,” he shouts, his voice echoing across the field. “If we’re going to do this, we do it by my rules!”
Jessome is standing in the middle of Frank Clair Stadium at 6 p.m. on a chilly November evening. The stands are empty, but the stadium lights have been turned on, illuminating the bizarre scene on the field below.
Half a dozen unattached doorways — including one revolving door and another the size of a garage — stand along the perimeter of the field. A pair of metal boxes, each larger than a pickup truck, sit in either end zone. Six gigantic rolls of rain jacket-like material lie scattered across the field.
And then there’s Jessome and his rag-tag army of kids, 40-year-olds and everything in between. They stand shivering in the 2 C weather awaiting instructions.
They’re here to pitch a tent.
“This is the biggest seasonal installation we do,” says Jessome, manager of field services for Yeadon Domes, a Guelph-based manufacturer of air-supported structures.
Every fall, Yeadon sends a small crew to Ottawa to erect the vinyl “bubble” that turns the stadium into an indoor multi-sport facility. On this night, nearly 50 locals have come to help Jessome and his partner.
The work is difficult. So much so that Jessome says people in his line of work only last 10 years before injuries get the better of them.
He’s been doing it nine and a half. The work has taken its toll on Jessome.
He says he currently sports a bum shoulder, but is not allowed to take any anti-inflammatory drugs for it. His doctor tells him he’s taken too many pills over the last year and a half already.
“My shoulder pops out every time I try to move something heavy,” he explains. “Popping it back in isn’t fun.”
It’s an unfortunate injury to have when the bubble weighs 20,000 kilograms.
The dome is divided into six separate sections, each of which is rolled-up for storage during the summer. Unrolling one of them looks like it will be a tall order, even for the army.
But at Jessome’s command, dozens of hands search for a spot to pull, push or shove the first vinyl bundle.
There’s not enough room for so many people, but it’s early in the evening and enthusiasm abounds.
The feeling peters out as the night wears on. After spreading all six sections of dome across the field like a sheet over a bed, Jessome orders the troops to fasten them together.
The Velcro strips which run along the edge of each section look like an easy solution, but instead, Jessome points to garbage pails filled with 15 cm-long metal plates. The two bolts attached to each plate must be threaded through holes on either section before the Velcro can be closed over them.
It’s painstaking work. The plates are cold, the bolts are sharp, and the dome is stubbornly immobile. After two hours, those without gloves are left with bleeding, dust-caked hands, sore wrists, and numb fingers.
By 10 p.m., all but a dozen hearty soldiers have deserted Jessome.
“We’d be finished by midnight if we had kept our numbers,” he grumbles.
Instead, the decimated crew works until nearly 3 a.m. Five hours later, they’re back at it.
Overnight, they have transformed the field of green artificial turf into a sea of white with waves of vinyl folds. They have attached all six sections of the dome and draped giant cables over it. The cables will help anchor the bubble once it’s inflated.
But the work isn’t nearly completed.
Water-stained two by fours still need to be hammered into a small channel that runs along the perimeter of the field. The boards pin the dome to the field and will keep air from escaping when the huge fans sitting in the end zones are turned on.
When Jessome strikes one of the boards, a mixture of water and finely shredded tire rubber (part of the field’s artificial turf) which had collected in the channel explodes in his face.
“Yum, breakfast,” snickers one of his soldiers. Jessome looks up and smiles, his face covered with specs of black rubber.
By late afternoon, nearly all the boards are in place, yet the dome remains flaccid overnight.
Within a few days, Frank Clair Stadium has its bubble. Over the next six months, soccer, football, ultimate and golf players will seek refuge from the dreary winter in the house Jessome built.
Many of them will take the impressive facility for granted.
If only they knew.