Toronto lacking facilities for elite olympic athletes

[elook]

I think speed skating is going to be a hot sport for Canadian youth in the coming years. Both the oval and short-track events are exciting to watch and relatively inexpensive to get involved in.

Starting kids at regular sized rinks makes a lot of sense, and then if they reach the elite status, take them to where they need to be - Winnipeg, Calgary or the new oval being built in Richmond, B.C. - or to short-track training in Quebec.

How many forumers will admit to wanting to strap on a pair of long blades and give it a try? Just meeting some of the hot Canadian skaters (your pick a preferred gender ) would be cool.

One thing the GTA could boast is a decent cross-country course up in the hills north of the city. It's another relatively inexpensive sport for kids to get into. As an aside, it's a great family sport as well.

 

[allabootmatt]

There is at least one speed skating club in the city--they use the arena behind the Forest Hill comm. centre. I was a member, once upon a time.

 

[Observer Walt]

Letter to the editor, published today (Feb. 25) in the National Post:

... Even though Canada has excelled at speed skating in these Olympics it has become all but impossible for Toronto's speed skaters to get indoor ice time to practice, due to the stranglehold that hockey has over this scarce resource...
After years of being relegated to late Saturday night, when neither young kids or teenagers are apt to come out, the Toronto Speed Skating Club finally landed mid-day Sundays at a remote rink. However, attempts to obtain a week night so that the skaters can practise more than once a week have so far not borne fruit. ...
Hart Schwartz, secretary, Toronto Speed Skating Club.

Not only is there no speed skating oval, but apparently it is difficult to use even a standard rink. How may ice surfaces are there in Toronto, and why can't even one be made available to these people in an accessible location and at reasonable hours?

Canada just won two more speed skating medals.

 

[rbtaylor]

Not only is there no speed skating oval, but apparently it is difficult to use even a standard rink. How may ice surfaces are there in Toronto, and why can't even one be made available to these people in an accessible location and at reasonable hours?

Hockey players are willing to pay more for the rink would be the obvious answer.

The biggest reason Toronto lacks ice surfaces is the surging popularity of womens hockey. The demand for ice time is significantly higher than it was 10 years ago.

I'm all for building additional surfaces, but I don't believe in bumping some kids hockey league or figure skaters off the ice for the sake of speed skaters -- especially if they have the necessary funding.

Speek Skaters should get together and hire a professional fund raiser to see if they can get Thompson or someone similar to build an olympic class oval, perhaps in exchange for a number of televised Thank-you's during the 2010 Olympics.

 

[Observer Walt]

rb: You are probably right that demand is higher now than it was, because of increased popularity of women's hockey among other things. But why should hockey or figure skating take precedence as you seem to be implying?

I don't know what the financial arrangements are, but as long as a group is ready and willing to pay for ice time, there should be equitable arrangements made to the best of everyone's ability. Hockey is an important part of Canada's culture, but I see no reason why hockey players should have a near monopoly.

PS: Canada now has three medals for speed skating today! More medals in this sport than any other.

 

[billonlogan]

Canada now has three medals for figure skating today!

I think you meant to say speed skating and we just got another, so thats 4 medals today in speed skating. woohoo!

 

[Observer Walt]

Bill: You are right and I was editing that at the same time as you posted your correction.

Woohoo indeed!

 

[Observer Walt]

Final tally: 24 medals, putting Canada in third place. Pretty impressive, even with no medal for men's hockey. There were also 11 fourth-place finishes.

Bring on Vancouver!

 

[rbtaylor]

rb: You are probably right that demand is higher now than it was, because of increased popularity of women's hockey among other things. But why should hockey or figure skating take precedence as you seem to be implying?

As far as I know, they don't take precedence, but they do tend to have more funds available to purchase time. For a kids game you can get 40 to 50 heads on the ice (4 to 5 lines per team) and nail the parents at the concession stand.

It is easy to get ice time in Toronto. It is difficult to get ice-time in Toronto at a bargain basement rate which tends to be what Olympic trainers can afford.

 

[afransen TO]

From the Star:

Interesting bits bolded

Ottawa to be lobbied for more Games cash
COC wants $50 million extra a year to boost results for Summer Olympics
Feb. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
JIM BYERS
SPORTS REPORTER

TURIN, ITALY—It was mission accomplished for the Winter Games. Now Canadian Olympic Committee officials say they're turning their sights to Canada's woeful Summer Olympic performance.

COC chief executive Chris Rudge said yesterday he'll be heading to Ottawa next month to try to squeeze as much as $50 million more a year to push Canada's medal totals in coming Summer Games.

"I don't expect in the next budget we'll get $50 million, but I expect the government to start giving us some of that money to help build summer programs," he said at a Turin 2006 wrap-up press conference.

Rudge also said it's time for Canada to invest as much as $300 million in sports institutes and national training centres, including new facilities in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

"We have to get Ontario moving," he said. "Ontario has 25 per cent of the population but if you take out the hockey teams there were less than 10 athletes" from the province in Turin. "We can't ... move forward that way. We can't develop depth of field ... if we don't have greater participation from the greatest population base in this country."

Canada won a record 24 medals with seven gold, 10 silver and seven bronze in Turin, good for third place in total medals. The COC says it is on pace to finish on top of the medal standings in Vancouver, the key component to its Own the Podium program.

Rudge said the next challenge is to "take what we learned here and apply it to summer sport."

"Summer sports are three times as big with three times as many athletes," he said. "They've sat patiently on the sidelines and said, `What about me? When does my turn come? What do I get out of this investment in 2010?' We have to move aggressively forward now to address the needs for summer sport and do ... the same things for them that we've done for winter sports."

Rudge said a new report next month will be the summer equivalent to Own the Podium. Given that Canada won just 12 medals in Athens, Rudge doesn't pretend that Canadians will own anything in Beijing at the 2008 Summer Games.

"We're further back in the pack," he said. "Twelve medals in Athens; probably 16 to 18 medals in Beijing will be a big stretch."

Rudge said the COC, in partnership with sports federations and the government, would like to see a long-term plan to leverage the 2010 Games into programs to serve Canada's youth.

After Canada's performance in Athens, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge visited Canada to plead with governments to do more for amateur sport.

Asked if he was monitoring Canada's performance here, Rogge nodded.

"You have a record number of medals, far bigger than at the last Olympic Games, and what is more important, you have a young generation," he said. "You also have the stars of tomorrow who have not yet got gold, but are very close to it. I think this is very promising."

"I'm quite sure that already today we can say that the Canadian team will be ready in Vancouver."

Rogge met with Governor General Michaelle Jean and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell on Saturday and told them he was impressed with Canada's preparations for Vancouver.

"The new program of the Canadian Olympic Committee, Own the Podium, which is supported on one hand by the government, but on the other hand, the corporate world, has yielded already unbelievable results."

 

[Cablestein]

I agree with previous different posters comments about reasons why Toronto isn't big on sports. With only a little bit of planning, Toronto could be good for some types of sports.

TRACK RACING - This has boggled my mind for years. Toronto is home to 1000's of bike hot shots on fixed gear track bikes and road racing bikes, with a large courier crowd and various bike fanatic groups. Should this not be ground-zero for Canadian track racing? How much space does a velodrome really need? Isn't it the size of a community hockey arena? Can't a hockey arena be converted into a velodrome during the warm months? Or... ideally... a dedicated velodrome is built on un-used land. I see plenty of plots of land out there within Old Toronto borders. Surely there would be enough users to support it?

SOCCER - It goes without saying that Canada is not necessarily a soccer nation... but the sport, even though it's less popular than other big N American sports, still has big sway in Canada. Is there not a general push to get soccer to be more popular? Isn't there a market with MLS (Toronto FC) stuff happening? So if there's to be any Canadian soccer development, doesn't it make sense for it to be based in Toronto? Toronto has the most immigrants. Immigrants know and love soccer. Toronto FC proves it. So knowing that, can't there be even more fields built? I see so many plots of land along Lakeshore and along rail lines and old industrial areas. What about taking school fields and expanding them? Adding air domes for winter play? I would love to see a sports dome at Central Tech highschool near Bathurst & Bloor. You could charge user fee's. I know many ppl that would easily pay $200-300 for a winter subscription. You would have no problems getting the schedules completely booked, considering 2 million people right at the doorstep.

MULTI-USE FIELDS - The same facilities for soccer could be used for many other field sports.

SWIMMING - This is the other thing that Toronto could excel at, with a general upgrade of all public pools systems and introducing even more regional facilities.

BASKETBALL - This one is easy.

Here we are as a generation of fatties. The solution is right in front of our eyes.

Instead they give everything away to developers. Shame.

 

[Hipster Duck]

With respect to our lack of winter athletic facilities, I could really give a toss. Canada's Olympians can just move out west and use the surplus facilities that are just hanging around Vancouver and Calgary. We are a small country of 33 million. We don't need an Olympic skating oval in every major city.

 

[jn_12]

Sure Olympians can, but you don't just become an Olympian. We need more top notch facilities for youths as well so they can become Olympians. Also, we're in dire need of more arenas for hockey. The supply just isn't meeting the needs of the country and it's driving the price of the sport higher and higher every year.

 

[Hipster Duck]

With respect to hockey, I probably agree with you. Frankly, we just need to get as many rinks as we can for the budget that we have, so I would be happy if the city just built a nondescript, centralized 16-pad megaplex in the middle of an industrial park in Etobicoke than waste money on an architecturally-designed facility in the Portlands.

With respect to every other expensive, competitive winter sport that requires complex infrastructure - like the luge, speed skating, ski jumping, etc. - kids can do whatever kids did in the past: move to a city that has the facilities and live with an adopted family during the training season. As a taxpayer, I'd be happier to subsidize these moves than to build a state-of-the-art $50 million facility that will be used by, at most, a tiny fraction of the public.

 

[jn_12]

Luge, ski jumping, specialized events like that, sure, I understand entirely that there isn't an appetite for spending on that, but I think investing in something like an Oval or a short track (which could fit in a normal sized minor hockey arena, but the fact is that we already struggle to cope with the needs for hockey and figure skating, so something specifically devoted to the sport would be welcome) would be a great investment. Speed skating is huge in Quebec because it is easily accessible. It's much cheaper than hockey and in this world of "helicopter parenting" would probably be seen as a safe option to put your kid in compared to hockey. We also have thousands of kids who stop playing hockey at a certain age for whatever reason but are excellent skaters. They shouldn't have to pack up and move to try something like speed skating.

I also don't think it would cost $50 million. A very basic facility is all you need. We don't need state-of-the-art like they have in Richmond. SLC's rink cost 30 million to build 10 years ago and it is a state of the art facility. I'm sure we could keep the price below that, though these things are so specialized it's hard to find low-cost comparables.

And ya, I agree wholeheartedly that we need quantity not quality with regards to our arenas.