Alberta Soccer Teams travel West to find turf.....

[ditty]

Sorry to hear you aren't involved in coaching anymore Chris. My run with my son and his friends has come to an end at the U16 level. Have to tone down my salty language now as I will be working with my daughter and her friends.

Yes, coaching girls is a different animal, in my experience. Glad to hear you're still at it.

[Obinna]

Several outdoor turf fields have been built in the past 5 years or so, all spearheaded by non-soccer groups as far as I know. There are 2 or 3 at Shouldice Park, (spearheaded by minor football, I think) the one mentioned at SAIT, one at a private school called Rundle College, one at a public high school, plus I guess you can count McMahon Stadium. All of these fields have been used by the Calgary Soccer Federation and its various members (senior men and women and youth). There is no indoor full-sized turf field.

My guess is that the ASA teams and other Alberta youth clubs travel to the coast more for competition than facilities. If there was an full sized indoor pitch perhaps they would stay home and hold their camps in March but when I was involved in coaching we went west to get outdoor games as well as train outside.

EDIT: Just realized that Ed responded to this already.

Thanks for the info.

By comparison, St. John's metro has 3 outdoor turfs:

St. John's - King George V (capacity 6,500):

Mount Pearl - Team Gushue sports complex (capacity 1,500):

IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/2hmg6yd.jpg

CBS - Topsail field (capacity 500):

.......

here is the indoor field in st john's:

[Obinna]

By comparison Nova Scotia has:

one 11v11 full field indoor turf in Halifax

another smaller turf field at the same facility

one in the South Shore

one in the Valley

one in Stellarton

one in Cape Breton

Hell check out the pics of the facility they have in East Hants http://www.easthantssportsplex.ca/easthants_11306.html

i moved away a number of years ago, I know there are more.

It's baffling that a small province like N.S has so many in comparison to a big rich province like Alberta.

What an awesome indoor facility, impressive considering it is outside HRM. East hants is a rural area no?

[CDNFootballer]

Seating for 10000, although can't see the grandstand in the rendering. Is this the site where there is a baseball stadium and outdoor field beside it?

[kj52]

This from yesterday's Red Deer Advocate.

http://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/Indoor_soccer_centre_planned_205832841.html

[tmcmurph]

The solution we came up with was to use the Gym for Futsal, which is marked with Handball lines (which are the same, for those who were unaware) of the fact. Between the Hours of 4:00pm whilst 6:00pm. As noted earlier Been a school sponsored programme the insurance is covered and the need to set up as a organisation is not needed either.

Its not a rival organistaion to the local Association. Its also no drawing finance away from anybody else. Its just providing an outlets for kids who arn't in any community/ club programmes to play organised " Pick up". And for those who are in club set up; giving them addition resorce to improve on their close skills which futsal engenders.

I'm not saying this would work every where, but I hope it get a few people thinking. Also I does not cost anything but a bit a of time and effort from myself , the Principle and some other volunteers on the organisational part.

Great work. I've tried repeatedly at my son's school but the most I ever got was 1/4rd of a triple gym for "open gym" night (badminton, basketball, dodgeball etc all at the same time). I'd bring my futsal ball and let whoever wanted to play or take shots at me. Only one teacher at the school had even heard of futsal. I'll try again next year when he goes to a new school.

I've always thought that getting futsal played in schools was the best way to develop technically skilled players. The schools have the facilities and the kids.

Cheers