THUNDER BAY — The governing body for soccer in the region has failed to find what a spokesperson calls "a quick,short-term fix" for the lack of indoor soccer facilities in Thunder Bay.
Soccer Northwest proposed the use of the Neebing Arena, but city officials rejected the idea.
Michael Veneziale, a Soccer Northwest director and president of the Thunder Bay men's league, says even to get one soccer field at the arena "is much more than we have now...and would help all the groups survive."
The collapse of the Sports Dome two years ago left soccer programs for an estimated 3500 adult and youth players scrambling for alternatives.
Veneziale said that of all the potential options Soccer Northwest looked at for the coming season, Neebing Arena was the best one.
He said "We know it's been planned to be shut down for the past couple of years...to my understanding, it's only being used for (hockey) practices. For us, if you have to move a couple of practices to some other facilities to help an entire sport run, it made sense to us."
Veneziale conceded that he didn't have "the factual information" to back up his perceptions about the need for ice-time in the arena.
The General Manager of Community Services for the city, Kelly Robertson, told Tbnewswatch the Neebing Arena "is still required to meet ice demand."
Robertson said that conclusion was reached after an in-depth review of all ice allocation in the city.
She noted that the city's Recreation and Facilities Master Plan recommended twinning an existing site such as Port Arthur Arena or Delaney Arena, and then decommissioning a single pad "potentially the Neebing Arena."
No such rink shutdown is imminent, however.
Robertson said that, given current usage of prime ice-time and the existing ice inventory, taking one rink out of service at this time for soccer would have a significant impact: 990 prime hours lost, affecting 3400 participants in hockey, figure skating, speedskating and ringette.
According to Veneziale, the lack of facilities leaves the soccer community looking to use whatever time slots are available at the Lakehead University fieldhouse, and, for younger players, local schools.
He said adjustments such as cutting back on practice time aren't enough to maintain previous programming.
"It looks like the women's league won't be running at all. Last year they attempted to do some sort of a league on the basketball courts at the fieldhouse, which was really tough to run. And the men's league may be able to do something, but it's going to be after 10 o'clock at night or before 7:00 AM."
A solution could be place, however, by the fall of next year.
The city recently issued a call for expressions of interest from non-profit and private sector partners to participate in developing an interim covered synthetic turf facility.
Robertson said the deadline for replies is September 10. Various steps will follow, with a detailed proposal and business plan going before council by January.
She said the facility could be a dome or could be built using any one of a number of building technologies.
It would fill a gap until the city is able to build a permanent indoor sport complex, something Robertson has stated previously is at least three to five years away.
