Forests and Forestry

Connor Sports, in the tiny mill town of Amasa, Mich., is one of the leading makers of hardwood floors for top professional and college teams.Los Angeles Clippers fans are being wowed this season by the bells and whistles in the team’s new $2 billion home, the Intuit Dome. They can watch replays on the world’s largest double-sided scoreboard, sit in a 51-row section reserved for die-hard supporters and buy a jersey in the 5,000-square-foot team store.But for all of that, most of their attention will be focused on the court, whose construction is a tale all on its own.It begins 2,200 miles away from Los Angeles, in the tiny mill town of Amasa, Mich. There, Connor Sports, one of the leading makers of hardwood courts, spent about a year procuring trees and building the court, a process that involved dozens of logs, hundreds of workers and thousands of hours. At the company’s plant amid the forests of the Upper Peninsula, workers traversing a maze of conveyors, saws and other machinery dried, cut, planed and shaved strips of wood during the two 10-hour shifts that run six days a week.Almost all of the courts from Connor Sports are made from northern hard maple wood.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe company builds about 800 courts a year, for N.B.A. and college teams as well as high schools around the country.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe company builds about 800 courts a year, with most of them destined for high school gymnasiums and recreational centers in all 50 states and beyond. Almost all are made with northern hard maple, a dense, durable wood harvested from forests above the 35th parallel, a standard set by the Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association, an industry group whose members make most of the hardwood floors in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More