SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — This week’s announcement of a new multi-purpose sports dome in Summerside is welcomed news for local sports associations.
Construction on the 138-by-75-metre footprint will begin in 2021 and will take between 12 and 16 months. The new facility, which is being built in preparation for the 2023 Canada Winter Games and will be funded by federal, provincial and municipal governments, will be located on Bob Dewar Drive near Eric Johnston Field – the city’s other turf facility.
“We are pretty happy,” said Stephen Campbell, president of the Summerside United Soccer Club (SUSC). “It's going to be a great thing for the sport and the city.
“Kids won’t have to travel outside the city during the winter months to train anymore. Having a second turf field during the summer will be an incredible help to the club and all the players within the Summerside area.”
The SUSC has close to 600 participants from under-5 to senior programs registered for the 2020 season.
Along with winter programming, Campbell said the new facility will open up opportunities to host tournaments and nationals.
“Right now, the only (programming) offered in the off months is what Soccer P.E.I. offers in Stratford,” said Campbell. “I am hoping we can offer the same type of programming in Summerside ourselves or in unison with Soccer P.E.I.”
“We are pretty happy. It's going to be a great thing for the sport and the city. Kids won’t have to travel outside the city during the winter months to train anymore. Having a second turf field during the summer will be an incredible help to the club and all the players within the Summerside area.”
- Stephen Campbell
Football
John Turner, president of Summerside Spartans Football and head coach of the Summerside Clippers’ varsity team, was pleased to hear the news. He said the new facility will allow the minor football program, which currently has its season run from August to November, to grow.
“We have been talking for years about how a facility like that will be fantastic for our program,” said Turner. “We can run programming over the winter and kids can be involved for 10 months of the year. It is fantastic.”
Other possibilities, noted Turner, include offering indoor flag football leagues for men, women and kids, along with hosting weekend tournaments and bringing in out-of-province teams.
“You could never think of even doing those things before because we never had space,” said Turner. “There are still a lot of football fanatics who want to play year-round.”
A total of 75 players registered with Summerside’s atom, bantam and varsity football programs last year.
Lacrosse
Darren Reeves is the Summerside representative for Lacrosse P.E.I., which normally runs programs at Eric Johnston Field in the spring. Reeves said this announcement is great news for the lacrosse community and opens up another avenue for people to get involved in different sports.
“We’ve heard rumours for a little while and we’ve been hoping and praying it would happen,” said Reeves. “We try to squeeze in between hockey and soccer as kids, obviously on P.E.I., are involved in different sports and we find it difficult to get numbers sometimes.
“Depending on the weather in the spring, we may be late getting on the turf field to start up, but not having to deal with the weather opens it up big-time for us.”
Reeves said one possibility is playing box lacrosse, which is normally played in arenas, in the new dome during the winter.
An average between 30 and 50 participants play lacrosse out of Summerside.
Baseball
Summerside Area Baseball Association (SABA) president Tanner Doiron is excited about the dome’s potential, adding it will create endless opportunities.
“It opens doors for camps, training, conditioning, and I think it’s going to be a very good asset for us,” said Doiron. “We are going to be actively involved with trying to get some of our programming in there for different training in baseball.”
SABA has 300 participants registered this summer,
Hockey
The Summerside Area Minor Hockey Association also welcomes the announcement.
President Doug Dexter described the sports dome as a wonderful addition to the city and added it will provide all kinds of training opportunities.
“If we are keeping the kids of our community active in their sports of choice, adding premier facilities like this is great,” said Dexter.
