THUNDER BAY – The state of local soccer fields is creating an “organizational nightmare” for the Thunder Bay Chill.
Poor conditions at the club’s home pitch at Chapples Park have been a constant problem for the past number of years, prompting the team to move all of their Premier Development League matches this season to Fort William Stadium.
But it’s not the PDL team that is paying the price for fields that become unplayable at the slightest hint of wet weather.
Tony Colistro, the organization’s director of soccer operations, said the youth programs are the most affected.
“We have 13 competitive teams and thousands of youth kids playing where we have to cancel sessions, reorganize schedules so it becomes a nightmare when you don’t have a proper facility,” he said.
“We tend to forget the youth and the parents are starting to see it and are getting frustrated with it and it’s becoming dangerous.”
An online petition urging the city to improve quality and maintenance of local soccer fields was started this past weekend by Paul Mackett, whose two sons play youth soccer with the Chill.
He believes it’s a matter of time until there’s a serious injury as a result of the poor fields.
“To have to use these fields is a disgrace,” Mackett said. “These kids are expected to try to play a sport that requires high speed and maneuvering where they’ve got huge depressions in the ground and sprinkler heads that are exposed from the ground sinking below them.”
The Chapples fields are some of the most affected.
The Chill’s stadium pitch, or Chapples 4, is a quagmire with soft, spongy ground all across the facility. The playing surface is covered with puddles and dirt patches.
Chapples 1 has been closed for more than a year, in hopes of rehabilitating the field but the process isn’t showing results as grass is sparse across the uneven surface where there are many hidden depressions.
The other two fields, while playable, are not in much better shape. The grass is worn down across most of the fields, with unreliable footing in many spots where one wrong step could result in injury.
“It’s frustrating because the city closes fields down each year, and we don’t have enough fields for the kids in the first place, but we close fields right in the heart of our soccer season and then we close another field and we don’t see any improvements,” Colistro said.
“It’s not working.”
The situation only gets worse when it rains.
That was evident this past weekend, when the organization hosted an elite Winnipeg youth program for games scheduled on Saturday and Sunday.
Games had to be cancelled on Sunday due to rain and the ensuing deterioration of the fields, which the Chill know impacts their ability to bring out of town teams in to play.
“They won’t come if you don’t have the facilities. With our own club, when we determine which competitions we’re going to that’s one of the things we look at,” Colistro said.
“We’ve bid to host two provincial weekend tournaments here and we have to hope for good weather because we have four teams from southern Ontario coming up. If we get any kind of rain that could jeopardize the whole weekend and that could also affect us in the future for hosting tournaments.”
The petition and criticism of the fields have caught the attention of Northwood Coun. Shelby Ch’ng, who said she wants to learn what needs to be done to improve the situation.
She has visited the Chapples and James Street fields to survey the scene.
“They do need some work. I’m not going to say they don’t,” she said.
“It’s just how they get the funding. Right now I’m in the process of talking with some people from Chill and community stakeholders to find out what their needs are.”
She has asked city administration to look into whether soccer facilities can qualify for the Canada 150 fund, a program introduced in the federal budget to upgrade community infrastructure across the country.
A memo is expected to be brought back to council for their June 22 meeting.
“Soccer is a relatively inexpensive for parents to put their children in and it’s an inexpensive sport in general,” she said. “I think it’s something that’s going to be growing in Thunder Bay. We really need to keep an eye on it and figure out a way to foster it in our community.”
Mackett intends to bring the petition forward to city council in early July.
