Quote:
Originally Posted by Innersoul1
It is quite the situation that we are in here in Calgary. With the popularity of both soccer and hockey it seems to have pitted the two sports against each other which is unfortunate.
Soccer is HUGELY popular in this city, as is hockey. I am not at liberty to talk about hockey, but I will say that we NEED new arenas. As a teacher it kills me when grade 5 kids come to class tired because they had a 5 am hockey practice. We need arenas. That being said, soccer need fields, both indoor and outdoor. Calgary recently lost a major youth level outdoor soccer tournament to edmonton because of the low quality of outdoor surfaces. I would suggest that this is largely because many of our fields are shared by soccer and football. Seriously, our outdoor fields suck. I have played at a high level of soccer for some time now (Youth, Varisity and Club) in fact my competitive career was ended playing on a shitty field at Shouldice (torn MCL) so this accounts for my bitterness.
in addition to this we need indoor fields. I was choked when the partnership between the UofC and CMSA was broken off...that facility planned for the west campus would have been something else. The new bubble is a wasted investment. Good for the time being but iti is built on city land a nd will be torn down when that land comes up for development. Futsall is a good alternative, but I have trouble seeing it catchin on here. One would be surprised at the number of gyms in the city that don't allow soccer to be played.
....I have to leave work for the day so I will continue my thoughts later!
sorry
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Sorry for my lengthy delay in continuing this.
As many of you have pointed out, although soccer is popular at the youth level, it has yet to catch on at a professional or semi professional level across most of the country. Exceptions certainly lie in markets such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. It really is a shame that Calgary franchises such as the Kickers, Mustangs and Storm never really went anywhere or did anything. I think for the most part that we could garner enough support to have 10,000 spectators watch games. BUT we have been plauged in Calgary by a lack of suitabel stadia to support the sport. REALLY, when you think of it we don't have one field in the city that would be suitable to really support a franchise and its fans (the ones that come to mind are Glenmore, Foothills and Broadview and all of these are marginal.).
Calgary really does need a soccer specific stadium. One might say that we don't have a team so why bother putting one up? But given the number of major tournaments, and events that this city has forfeited it really would be a boost to, not only the sport, but the profile of the city.
Here is what I would like to see as far as a SSS for Calgary:
1) Stadium Capacity of 10,000-15,000 with room for expansion
2) Tight seating (ie seating snug to the field) for an intimate feeling
3) The seating areas should be covered
4) Press boxes
5) Some luxury boxes or space for expansion for the purpose of luxury boxes.
6) A FIFA 2-Star Field Turf installation
I will go into some detail on this further on.
7) A possible partnership with the UofC
Soccer program
Let me start by saying that I am NOT a fan of Toronto's new BMO field. Personally, for the cost incurred to build this stadium I think that it looks pretty cheap compared to some of the new MSL stadia (70 million). I don't like that the main grandstand isn't covered. This is our national stadium and it is really MARGINAL! I like that there are press boxes and views are nice but it really is nothing special. I am torn witht he filedturf installation. This being the national facility grass would have been nice but I recognize the costs associated with this.
I think that BMO would be better suited for Calgary
I don't think that Calgary's stadium should be too large, mainly because of costs and the fact that it will not support a city team at this time. Room for expansion is a must. I like the idea of tight/snug seating so that every seat in the house is a good one. It was one of the things I hated about watching the Mustangs at McMahon, it really felt like an airplane hanger, not atmospher. Press boxes are a must and Luxury boxes would be a nice option and room to make more of them is a must. If this stadium and any future soccer franchises are to be successful then we need corporations to buy in. Luxury boxes are a great way to accomodate this.
The biggest thing is that this stadium MUST have a FIFA 2 star turf installation. Grass is just not viable in this city especially with our wonky climate. The cost to maintain such a field would be crazy. FIFA 2 star Turf is the only turf that Fifa will allow sanctioned games to be played on. It undegoes rigourous testing to meet Fifa's certification. So as pointed out, McMahon didn't opt for a field with the painted on lines possibly because of the costs to put in a true 2-star installation. CONCACAF now has 5 official 2-star installations and they are ALL in Canada (BMO Field is the newest addition). For more on 2 star installations please see the following links:
http://www.fifa.com/en/development/p...1350,9,00.html
http://www.fifa.com/documents/static...IFA-guideM.pdf
I think that having a partnership with the University of Calgary would and could be beneficial. However, if this was to happen, the filed should be SS and used by the men's and women's varsity teams for games and practices. It can be said that this partnership might be bad as well a-la the Stampeders and McMahon, but at least at this point some of the costs would be absorbed.
Let me conclude by saying that a Canadian soccer league is viable, just not in the near future. I think that all attempts for a domestic league have been marginal ones. Cities need to buy in, this means having SSS that can support teams and make watching the sport interesting and comfortable Pushing the focus from large markets to some of the smaller ones may be a good way of doing this but not a necessity. Team in Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Quebec City, Halifax and St. John's would be nice (obvioiusly some more Ontario teams could be added). But this demands commitment from all the cities involved.
Lastly, here is a link to the thread on BMO field from SSC. There is a good discussion on the stadium itself along with a domestic Canadian league. Be sure to see the discussion on pg 5 of Stadia that look way better than the one in TO and built for less
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=405215
Sorry about all of the Spelling mistakes.=