TURF’S UP: University of New Brunswick athletic director Kevin Dickie invites fans to come out to UNB’s Chapman Field, which is ready for action regardless of weather conditions. The Varsity Reds men and women’s soccer teams will play their first games on the field today, hosting the Cape Breton University Capers at 1 and 3 p.m.
 

Turf field at UNB was much needed -- Dickie

By BILL HUNT
hunt.bill@dailygleaner.com
Published Saturday October 13th, 2007
Appeared on page B3

The University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds get to officially roll out the green carpet this weekend.

The new $1.7 million state-of-the-art FieldTurf surface on Chapman Field, installed with just minutes to spare before the start of the Sony Cup Under-18 Canadian soccer championship tournament last week, will debut as the home of the Varsity Reds men's and women's soccer teams today.

The women take on the Cape Breton Capers at 1 p.m. with the men to follow on the shiny new pitch at 3 p.m.

Though it came down to the 11th hour to get it done in time for the Sony Cup -- workers were there around the clock for the two weeks leading to Sony Cup kickoff even though UNB was under no obligation to finish by that deadline -- UNB athletic director Kevin Dickie said it was a project more than two years in the planning.

"It goes back as a need for UNB for a while," he said. "When I got here, I was handed a file ... it had napkins and matchbook covers ... but it really had no relevance in moving the project forward. It needed some attention."

Dickie decided to pay it some attention.

He put together a business plan, the key elements of which were already in place by the time the host V-Reds won the AUS championship in the mud and muck of "old" Chapman Field last November.

While UNB prevailed to win the championship in a quagmire, Dickie said the messy pitch "didn't hurt our cause."

It actually helped in one sense, in convincing the university fathers that "this could really help the university. We want to be a place where the community and the region and the nation are excited to be. It was a matter of making the dollars work."

The FieldTurf is only one aspect of the project. There will be lights. A bubble to enclose a portion of the field. A clubhouse. A score clock. Dickie "isn't comfortable" revealing a final cost on the whole project.

The FieldTurf is top of the line.

"We had a couple of things that we weren't going to compromise, and one of them was the quality of the field," he said. "If you're going to spend a lot on a vehicle, you're probably going to want to pimp your ride."

Dickie sees it as a home for UNB's soccer program, of course, and other varsity programs and campus recreation. The Fredericton District Soccer Association, Capital Area Minor Football. Ultimate Frisbee. Rugby. Lacrosse. Indoor golf. And if you and a bunch of your buddies want to play touch football under the lights some night, there's provision for that too -- at prices cheaper than are available elsewhere at the other turf facilities in the province.

"The continual search for partners will not stop," he said. "But you have to build it before they come. People have to get a sense of what they're opting into."

It's Dickie's and UNB's field of dreams.

But he said working with the city, in particular with recreation director Wayne Tallon, was "seamless and easy. I can't say enough good things about our relationship with the city and how well we worked together to accomplish something that was important to both of us."

Life expectancy of the surface is 10-15 years.

Whether there will be a UNB football team taking to that surface is a question Dickie expects the administration will be able to answer "by the end of the fiscal year."

For now, the football lines on the field are a tribute to the diligence of Capital Area Minor Football Association Past President Terry McIntyre.

"It just boiled down to 'What can we do to be a part of this thing, and what can we do to make it happen?' " said Dickie. "It's that type of attitude that gets the orange lines every five yards on a field."

They need the same kind of energy -- on a grander scale -- to bring back UNB football.

"In my first two weeks as AD here, I was bombarded more about a sport we didn't have than sports that we do."

Dickie has done some research, contacting 11 schools across the country to determine what it would cost to run, not just a program, but a winning program.

Operating budget is "over a quarter of a million dollars every year," he said.

Startup costs "depend on a lot of different things. We have the surface, but do you have the infrastructure around it? The business plan would depend on how many people you could put in. If we're counting on this many people, could you put that many stands in?"

The analysis aspect has been completed. Now it's in the hands of "some of the people that are energized about having football here at UNB," Dickie said.

Dickie is reluctant to reveal how many and who they are, but they're investigating partnerships with alumni, the business community, the community at large and the university to see whether a relaunch is viable.

"At the end of the day, there's not going to be any grey," he said. "It will either be black or white. But what we'll be able to do, finally, for the first time since 1980 is say 'It doesn't work here at UNB' or 'Maybe this can work.' I would think that by the end of our school year, we'll have a pretty good idea."
  
  
UNB to partner with city on new 'turf' field

By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
hmclaugh@dailygleaner.com
As published on page B1 on November 8, 2006

A weekend of soccer play at University of New Brunswick's Chapman Field was a good reminder of why the university decided a year ago to embark on a redevelopment plan to install artificial turf at the facility.

Cold, damp weather and tough competition in the six-team Atlantic University Sport men's Soccer Championship, won by host UNB Varsity Reds, left the grass field a chewed up mess.

UNB athletic director Kevin Dickie says a year ago in September when he left coaching in Saskatchewan to join the university as athletic director, he was handed a thick file that backgrounded the possibility of the university installing the city's first artificial turf field.

But the file had languished and needed work, so he started over, Dickie said Tuesday.

During the past year, the university has been crunching the numbers, working on potential partnerships and creating a concept plan for the future.

"In order to have a project that is as significant as this, you've got to have the finances in place," Dickie said. "We're 80 per cent there."

The plan received a major boost recently, when city council quietly voted behind closed doors, to purchase 3,000 hours of play on the two new proposed soccer fields. The decision has to be ratified during the 2007 budget vote, but it was approved unanimously.

Dickie said he's had an outstanding working relationship with the city's community services director Wayne Tallon who has been working to fast-track the plan. The potential partnership with the city is an exciting one, Dickie said.

The concept plan is to install two artificial turfed fields and - depending on cash flow - create some form of an indoor environment for sports play. Ancillary buildings are contemplated as part of the total package, other sources have indicated.

"Whatever our ultimate vision is, we need the finances and the partnerships to be forged," Dickie said. "The project won't happen without that final piece of the puzzle being confirmed."

While soccer is the main potential user of the artificial turf, Dickie sees room for traditional sports such as rugby and football and nouveau energy-burners such as ultimate frisbee players to share time on the fields.

Dickie's waiting on word from a couple of sport user groups before putting a final package together for senior university officials.

"The university knows what the business plan requires from our (own) investment and from partners," Dickie said. "We're trying to get it on the rails by next summer. That's the goal, for sure."

Community services committee chairman Coun. Bruce Grandy said the city's proposal to purchase field time isn't just going to help UNB. It would allow the city a change to take some of its fields out of play and repair them, Grandy said.

Fredericton hired Amulet consultants Ltd. for a professional review of its sports fields and few of the fields got passing grades when the soccer capacity analysis was presented to council this past July. The capital city lacks artificial turf which soccer and minor football associations have long argued would extend play and allow the city to market itself for more competitive and championship play.

Grandy said city council is welcoming the community partnership with UNB because it's for the betterment of all parties. "They're providing infrastructure and we're going to agree to pay for use. We wouldn't own it or tell them how to run it," Grandy said.

Amulet's report to the city estimated the capital cost of developing an artificial field at $1.8 million. While development costs are high, Amulet's report said artificial turf has a 20-year plus lifespan and offers the possibility of year-round play depending upon cold weather. Unlike soil, sand or filled turf fields, the annual maintenance costs are about $2,000 instead of $25,000 to $30,000 annually for natural field surfaces.

 

FDSA talking with city about switch to 'turf'

By BILL HUNT
bhunt@dailygleaner.com
As published on page B4 on November 23, 2006

A committee representing the Fredericton District Soccer Association has met with officials from the city to present a "usage plan" detailing how much and how often they would use the proposed new Field Turf surfaces which are to be installed at UNB by next June.

The city of Fredericton purchased 3,000 user hours from UNB and will broker them to various user groups to run programs on the two new artificial surfaces, which will be located on the site of Chapman Field, adjacent to the Aitken Centre on the UNB campus. The fields will be lighted, which will extend the hours available for daily use.

Nick Guitard, the volunteer president of the FDSA, which includes 1,791 members and between 120-130 teams from micro (ages 4-6) to 18-and-under, said the FDSA had a general membership meeting last Monday to present its plan - including proposed hours of use and fee structure - to the membership and presented its proposal to community services director Wayne Tallon last week.

He expects the city to respond "before Christmas."

"We've thrown some numbers on the table, and our discussions with the city have been very positive," said Guitard. "We're negotiating prices. If we get what we want, about 51 per cent of our program will move from grass to turf fields."

Tallon said negotiations were "very much at the preliminary stages. We've exchanged some ideas and a proposal," he said. "We're hoping to get it all done before year-end."

Guitard's idea is that all players in the FDSA system would get a chance to play on the new fields. His hope is that the FDSA's recreational programs would stay in their current mode, running four nights per week from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.; while the Division 1 and Premiership programs - comparable to competitive and elite teams in hockey - would play on weekends.

Guitard is also the chairman of the 2007 Sony Cup Under-18 national men's and women's soccer championship tournament which is booked Oct. 3-8, 2007. He envisions the new soccer facility - which is to include a "bubble" housing an indoor surface - becoming "Soccer Central" for the week that 20-team tournament runs.

He said the tournament would require two additional fields as well. He said Option A would be to take the two Raceway Fields on the Fredericton Exhibition grounds out of commission for the summer "to let them rest" and put them back into circulation for perhaps one or two games per day during the tournament.

Another option would be to use two fields at CFB Gagetown.

Guitard anticipates entering into a long-term agreement with the city for "a substantial amount" of the 3,000 hours the city has purchased from UNB. Tallon said the 3,000 hours are what UNB made available and will also serve the needs of
minor football, Ultimate frisbee and other recreational programs.

"I'm very optimistic we'll reach an agreement," Tallon said. "They've been great to work with."

"They have a number of hours they want us to use, and we have a number in mind," Guitard said. "We have to be prudent and we have to make some decisions on behalf of our membership."

Tallon said the FDSA plan is to purchase between 750-1,000 hours to accommodate its programs. Hours for the national tournament would be separate from that. He said the deal would be for five years, with extensions for five years. The long-range plan, he said, is for the city to build its own turf field in 2011.

Negotiations for office space in the "bubble" for the FDSA would be negotiated with UNB as the landlord, said Guitard.

He said any increase in fees, to be passed on to the membership of FDSA via a fee increase, would be "very modest and manageable for an average family."

Guitard said a June 2007 opening of the facility would nicely coincide with the beginning of the FDSA's recreational programs, which are the major thrust of its membership. Premiership and Division 1 teams traditionally start earlier. He sees the new surfaces as a boon to the development of those teams.

"Our biggest issue with our premiership teams is they can't get on the field early enough to get that "field feel," he said. "We're three months behind teams from Halifax and other areas."

Guitard said FDSA and the other soccer organizations in the area - the Fredericton Wanderers, New Maryland United Soccer and Oromocto soccer organizations - are close to hiring a technical director for the Western zone of the province who would "coach the coaches" and run a regional development program.

He said a "number one candidate" and "two number two candidates" have been identified and background checks are being done.

He expects an offer to be extended to the top candidate by early December and hopes to have him in place by Jan 1.

"It's an exciting time for soccer," said Guitard.

 

 

Soccer enthusiasts read on ... city to improve field conditions for players
 
By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
hmclaugh@dailygleaner.com
Published 2006-12-26 | Page A5
 
Fredericton city council has put its money where its mouth is.

The city has committed to purchasing 3,000 hours of time on an all-season artificial turf athletic field to be built by the University of New Brunswick. The cost to city taxpayers will be $165,000.

"We have reached an agreement with the University of New Brunswick," said finance committee chairman Dan Keenan.

The construction of artificial turf fields will allow soccer, ultimate frisbee players and other sports groups to have access to better play surfaces, Keenan said.

"This is a beautiful opportunity for us to provide better facilities for the users and to partner with the university," said community services director Wayne Tallon. "Right now we're waiting for them to make the official announcement that they will build the facilities. Hopefully we'll have them up and running by next summer."

The city commissioned a review of its own sports play fields from Amulet Consulting.

That report gave only passing grades to many of the grassed fields the city owns. Excessive play makes it tough to keep the fields in good shape and restricts the length of the play season, the consultant noted.

Soccer, one of the fastest growing sports in the country, has been lobbying for better Fredericton recreation fields because of the growth in its membership.

In 2002, the Fredericton District Soccer Association entered into an agreement with the city to develop lands for use as a soccerplex.

According to the organization's 2006 annual report, it spent $40,407 on the development of a site for a soccerplex, including clearing lands for the preparation of fields.

"Because of new developments regarding the soccerplex location the city returned the entire amount spent on this site," said treasurer Karen Grant in the annual report.

The soccer group also donated just over $10,000 to improve fields so it could meet regulation standards.