Grass v Real Turf

[trueviking]

if the top football countries continue to refuse to play on plastic fields, then screw them....the 85th ranked nation in the world has a long list of suitors who want to fly across the world to play our boys in front of 4000 people.

and if our top calibre players dont want to play for canada because they are used to the best quality in the world and coming home to play in our national stadium on a field that is sub-standard so the toronto pee wee boys team can have access to it...well screw them too...our talent pool is deep enough, that they can easily be replaced.

put your ear up close to your monitor...can you hear the sarcasm.

it would be like kazakstan building a national hockey arena and installing plastic ice, because it is cheaper to maintain...and then telling their few NHL players that if they dont want to play on it, then screw them...would the canadian national team ever go play there?....not a chance, so why would we expect germany and england to come here and play on our bush league field?...there is already little incentive...this is just one more thing to add to the pile.

[backstick]

The ironic thing about all of this is that Canada's best game during the CONCACAF qualifying round for Germany was in Saprissa...on FieldTurf...

[Richard]

Has the International Ice Hockey Federation approved a plastic ice surface for international hockey?

[Richard]

This is just one more thing the hate-anything-to do-with-the-CSA crowd has picked on to bash the CSA and MLSE with who in their considered opinion are to blame for everything that is wrong with Canadian soccer and get no credit for anything that is right. One has the sense that they'd rather have no BMO Field and not Toronto FC if the surface is to be FieldTurf - then the rest of us would have to put up with more wailing about how the CSA is doing nothing for Canadian soccer and Kevan Pipe should be fired. I don't see that anybody here has actually checked with the CSA to find out precisely why they are insisting on FieldTurf for BMO Field or is everybody just guessing - again? Kevan Pipe by himself is not the CSA.

[Guest speedmonk42]

WTF do people want?

No matter which way we cut it, we don't have the resources for a full time dedicated grass stadium for 1 pro team and x number of national team games per year.

Modular grass can come later.

This is a publicly funded facility. Yes the hockey teams built their own, but only after using similiar public facilities for DECADES before.

[Daniel]

The thing is that it would have made more sense to have a separate field with a plastic pitch (and winter bubble) and not waste the stadium's primary function, to be the best SOCCER stadium in Canada. As long as it does not have a permanent grass field, it cannot happen.

I will not be cheering for TFC (because I have my own club), but I can appreciate the youth teams (especially if they are free) going towards development. Forcing national teams to play there against the will of certain players is a bad idea and I can't see much argument going against that.

[trueviking]

quote:Originally posted by Richard

Has the International Ice Hockey Federation approved a plastic ice surface for international hockey?

that is irrelevant...as long as the players of all but the backwater soccer nations dont accept it, FIFA can approve play on margarine covered saran wrap with the same result.

[trueviking]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42

WTF do people want?

No matter which way we cut it, we don't have the resources for a full time dedicated grass stadium for 1 pro team and x number of national team games per year.

Modular grass can come later.

This is a publicly funded facility. Yes the hockey teams built their own, but only after using similiar public facilities for DECADES before.

i dont get how all of a sudden grass is like gold...when did it become so prohibitively expensive to maintain grass?...my local high school has a pretty nice field, maintained by the janitor...winnipeg's 7 000 seat baseball stadium has a beautiful field and the money in the league that plays there is half of what MLS brings in.

two friends of mine are 2/3 of the maintenance crew for the baseball park...they get paid $500 per week to maintain it for 5 months...that is nothing compared to the 1.5 million dollars it costs for a fieldturf pitch that needs to be replaced every 6-7 years to maintain its FIFA standing.

They maintained grass fields for hundreds of years...why all of a sudden is it so expensive that the thought of it is so far fetched that it can not even be considered.

if a city of 5 million in one of the richest countries in the world can not afford a few thousand dollars a year to maintain one grass field, we are sad...

the bottom line is that this country has no soul...it is all about money....we live in a vinyl siding society.

[Daniel]

Toronto should follow Montreal's example and build indoor complexes on their own instead of ruining a stadium so Joe Bloe can rent 1/3 of the field for 180$ an hour.

[Richard]

quote:Originally posted by trueviking

that is irrelevant...as long as the players of all but the backwater soccer nations dont accept it, FIFA can approve play on margarine covered saran wrap with the same result.

Of course its irrelevant, that was my point. What does hockey have to do with soccer?

[trueviking]

quote:Originally posted by Richard

Of course its irrelevant, that was my point. What does hockey have to do with soccer?

Noun

S: (n) metaphor

In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Typically, a first object is described as being a second object. In this way, the first object can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second object can be used to fill in the description of the first.

A comparison between two unlike things with the intent of giving added meaning to one of them. Metaphor is one of the most important forms of figurative language.

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them.

[Richard]

Where is the likeness between hockey and soccer?

[trueviking]

you seriously can not make that intellectual leap?...c'mon man....i hope you are just yanking my chain.

i'll dumb it down for you....read slowly.

the mataphor was used to illustrate the position of top ranking soccer nations, by drawing a parallel scenario to a sport in which canada is a top ranking nation. A metaphor puts you in the place of others, by referencing a likeness to a familiar condition, so that you might see the situation from their perspective.

we would never expect canada, a top ranked hockey country to send its players to play in a facility that the very surface that the game is to be played on was something that was disliked by the players and is not consistent with their league games and all other international games.

this is exaclty how germany and england, top ranked soccer countries feel about coming to canada to play on a plastic field....it may be FIFA approved, but if the players dont like it and it is not what the teams are used to...they have so many more options that they will simply move on and play a country that will at least accommodate them on a playing surface that is made of the same material as they are used to.

friendlies are generally tune ups for bigger competitions...why would you send your team to play canada on a surface that will not be consistent with that of those competitions?...the answer is, they wont...they will find a team that will provide a more consistent tune up.

[Richard]

Keep repeating it my friend, ad infinitum, I am enjoying this.

[trueviking]

ok, you got me....i am glad that you were just toying with me and that you were not such a simpleton that you couldnt cross that intellectual chasm.

[Richard]

You clearly have not taken in the conditions imposed by those who put up the money for this place. If it is SUCH a bad thing maybe we should just say no thank you, cancel the whole thing, give back the money, tear down the stadium and return the MLS franchise because some people have a fit about playing on FieldTurf. A truly great athlete will not make a fuss and will simply adapt his/her game as necessary if required and get on with it. The top amateur clubs in BC switch from FieldTurf to grass on a regular basis without complaint. They just get on with it. It is the half-baked wannabe prima donnas who make the most fuss. You ever heard the expression "empty vessels make the most noise"?

You've been handed a $70 million facility and an opportunity to enter a Canadian team in the top league in North America and all you can do is whine and complain about the field surface. You lot are nothing but a bunch of crybaby spoilt brats. There are millions of people who would give their first born for a magnificient facility like this. Time to start counting your blessings.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by trueviking

i dont get how all of a sudden grass is like gold...when did it become so prohibitively expensive to maintain grass?...my local high school has a pretty nice field, maintained by the janitor...winnipeg's 7 000 seat baseball stadium has a beautiful field and the money in the league that plays there is half of what MLS brings in.

two friends of mine are 2/3 of the maintenance crew for the baseball park...they get paid $500 per week to maintain it for 5 months...that is nothing compared to the 1.5 million dollars it costs for a fieldturf pitch that needs to be replaced every 6-7 years to maintain its FIFA standing.

They maintained grass fields for hundreds of years...why all of a sudden is it so expensive that the thought of it is so far fetched that it can not even be considered.

if a city of 5 million in one of the richest countries in the world can not afford a few thousand dollars a year to maintain one grass field, we are sad...

the bottom line is that this country has no soul...it is all about money....we live in a vinyl siding society.

First of all there is a huge difference in the cost of sodding and maintaining a top notch professional grass field and the school yard amateur pitches some people are referring to here. Will everyone be happy if we get a crap natural grass pitch like the one at CCR? Daniel, I would think Toronto also has some indoor pitches like Montreal and that is immaterial to the issue at hand.

The biggest problem with grass though is that if you want to maintain it to a good standard it can not be played on very often. Even top professional teams in Europe rarely practice on their own pitches and instead have practice fields. The reserve teams aren't allowed anywhere near the main pitch even for games. One of the reasons these pitches are so good is that they are only played on once every two weeks. This is a publicly financed stadium and future stadium revenues played a large part in how this was financed. Many complained about the tax dollars going into the stadium but if the stadium had a grass field that was only being used for MLS and national team games the various levels of government may have had to double their contributions. I doubt the CSA had much choice other than to agree to Field Turf.

To look at how much revenue a Field Turf field with a winter bubble can make, Frank Clair stadium in Ottawa has no professional sports tenant. Even when the Roughriders were there the stadium was losing a massive amount of money so much so that after they folded the city had plans to tear it down. After they installed Field Turf and started renting it out all year with a bubble in the winter it completely turned things around. Now despite not having a CFL team the stadium actually makes money. In effect the stadium was saved by Field Turf. Would I prefer Frank Clair was natural grass, yes if taxpayers were willing to fund it (I suspect they are not). I am sure as hell happier to have a Field Turf Frank Clair stadium than no stadium at all.

The CSA has certainly screwed up a lot of things but they actually have done a pretty good job in getting this stadium built despite the continual incompetence and idiocy of various official/universities/organizations in Toronto. How many times and in how many various locations was this stadium supposed to be built? I am happy it is getting built at all. I would prefer natural grass considering it is the national stadium but I think Field Turf is still better than not having a stadium at all. I would bet that the Field Turf surface will be superior to CCR's grass surface. The surface can always be changed at a latter time anyway. If Field Turf is the price we have to pay to get this built than I am willing to accept that.

[trueviking]

the field turf pitch may be better than CCR, but nobody will play on it so who cares.

has there ever been a men's game played at frank clair?...no...so if you are claiming that having frank clair with plastic is better than not having a stadium, in regards to national soccer, the answer is that they are the same...ottawa has seen as many nats games with their FIFA approved turf as they would have if they tore the stadium down....i am sure the bubble is great for local teams, but you hardly need a 30 000 seat stadium for that.

if the point was to make a national stadium for soccer and a home to a pro team in the best league available, then field turf is a failure.

if the point was to make a 70 million dollar stadium for amateur players in toronto then i guess field turf will make that a success.

my question is why are we spending $70 million on a pitch for local amateurs?....why do they need a 20 000 seat stadium?...isnt this a pro stadium?.....what pro stadium of any kind lets the needs of local amateurs override the needs of the professionals? that logic makes no sense.

if they really wanted to appease local players, why not spend 68 million on the stadium and make it appropriate for pro's and spend 2 million on a pitch with a bubble for local players?

what a defeatist attitude it is to say that a half assed stadium is better than no stadium....why are those the two options?....why cant one of the options be a proper stadium?....to be honest, i dont really support my tax dollars building yet another field turf stadium in the east....there are already 3 there that have never hosted a national team game....why didnt they just declare frank clair the national soccer stadium?...or mcgill?...what does this stadium offer that those dont?

if field turf is so universally accepted, why didnt they play at molson stadium a few weeks ago?

toronto will be the laughing stock of MLS, the only stadium that will be on plastic in the entire league...it will be a topic of discussion by the players and media every game...some 'world class city'...it is embarassing to build a brand new SSS and cut cost on the most important part, the playing surface....when montreal and vancouver build their stadia, toronto's will be obsolete.

i dont hear them complain about the crushing costs of maintaining swanguard, centennial park, or all the university football fields in the country, or the baseball stadium in winnipeg...why is this field so much more difficult to maintain?

[Grizzly]

Frank Clair Stadium will be one of the host stadiums for the U-20 WC. Considering that the Men's national team has played in Ottawa twice since 1885 it is pretty hard to claim that the sole reason we haven't played in Ottawa recently is field turf. And yes having Frank Clair with a plastic turf is better for soccer and every other sport than having it demolished, it would cost millions to build something similar again. A defeatest attitude is too bitch continuosly about one of the best developments in Canadian soccer for a long time because it doesn't meet your idea of perfection.

[trueviking]

i am sure frank clair is great with plastic...for locals and other sports....but for the national team, which is the point of discussion, it might as well not be there at all....they would rather play world cup qualifiers on essentially a local playground in kingston than in frank clair.

we built a new national stadium with a playing surface that players from other nations will not play on...we built a new stadium for our new pro team and it will be the only stadium in the league with a different playing surface than all the others...that is a bit more than just not "meeting my idea of perfection"...that is an embarassment.

[DoyleG]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Frank Clair Stadium will be one of the host stadiums for the U-20 WC. Considering that the Men's national team has played in Ottawa twice since 1885 it is pretty hard to claim that the sole reason we haven't played in Ottawa recently is field turf. And yes having Frank Clair with a plastic turf is better for soccer and every other sport than having it demolished, it would cost millions to build something similar again. A defeatest attitude is too bitch continuosly about one of the best developments in Canadian soccer for a long time because it doesn't meet your idea of perfection.

Demolishing Frank Clair would mean demolishing the Ottawa Civic Centre as well. No city of Ottawa's size would've gone so long without a new stadium being built so this is a rather chicken little type of response.

People ignore why FieldTurf became so popular in the first place. It all has to do with that stadiums didn't want to deal with the old style Astroturf carpets they had. Losing money due to players being injured on AstroTurf didn't sit well with football team owners. Hence why the gridiron has been the biggest customer for FieldTurf. All the SSS facilities that are in use or planned for MLS have a natural surface. Toronto is the exception to the rule.

As has been pointed out, the soccer usage for field turf has been for the multi-field soccer complexes that could have several games being played on one field alone. It works well for team training facilities since it can be used under any conditions.

FieldTurf has to have the field clean in order for it to work well for soccer. It didn't help that the way Frank Clair and Molson Stadium were prepared for games, especially when deal with football lines.

If one takes a look at how bad things are with FieldTurf in professional soccer is the events at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. This stadium was used a a venue for the 1996 Olympic soccer tournament and had a grass surface for a long time. Recently, it's grass surface has been taken out and replaced with FieldTurf. The USSF apparently is now not going to play anymore games in Birminham. They certainly won't be playing in Salt Lake at least until the new stadium in Sandy is built.

Funny how Pipe tried to use the "claims" of women's national team players when there's been more criticism of FieldTurf from both sides than praise. Brasil didn't like the surface when they played in Ottawa and Montreal a couple of years ago and I don't think the English were fond of it either.

MLSE should easily fund an indoor training facility as it seems they have made a profit off of the facility already.

[RS]

First off, not all surfaces are equal. This goes with natural grass, and FieldTurf as well.

All of the comparisons to Frank Clair and McGill are a non-starter, because apparently the FieldTurf at BMO will be FIFA 2-star (ie. the highest standard, soccer specific</u> stuff). No other large stadium in Canada has the FIFA 2-star FT, so likely none of us (outside of those who have been to King George V lately) have actually seen this particular surface.

Before we go damning the stuff, perhaps we should actually see it before passing final judgment on it.

[Guest speedmonk42]

The cost of the grass, installation and maintenance is not the problem.

It is the events you can't have in the stadium when you have grass.

Grass makes it a one trick pony.

Trust me, I and most likely Grizzly ect... would like nothing more than a great grass field and stadium dedicated to soccer. We are not there yet.

[trueviking]

i thought the point of this stadium was that it was to be 'a one trick pony'....doesnt the second S in SSS mean 'specific'?

that is why this is so ridiculous...if it is to be a multi purpose stadium, then i can accept it...this is being sold as soccer only, which makes the decision unacceptable.

no matter how good the new generation is to you and me...our opinion doesnt matter....when brazil or germany or england are here to play on it, then i will be proven wrong.

[lefoot]

field turf is an embarassment. i am sure it comes down to sponsorship money or the like. its really sad that the investors couldn't find a way to spend the money and have a bigger vision. no big club will send its top team to play on a legoland pitch. sorry!