Something remarkable happened this month. Ecole Argyle Secondary’s long-awaited artificial turf field finally opened for play. No one can say this was a rushed project – some high school athletes who entered Grade 8 at Argyle without a field graduated without ever setting foot on it. But after five long years, the community can now celebrate what a great amenity it is.
In this case, the field truly has been a community effort. Without the District of North Vancouver stepping in and bankrolling the field to the tune of more than $5 million, the project would never have happened. Expensive fields just aren’t in the province’s budget when it comes to building new schools. Which is too bad.
Old-fashioned grass fields just can’t withstand the kind of heavy-duty use that today’s athletic teams subject them to.
Athletes on the North Shore are particularly squeezed when it comes to sports fields for teams to practice on. Even with Argyle now open and the turf field at William Griffin slated to re-open over the winter, there will still be a lack of fields for local teams.
The result is that thousands of kids are forced to practice on ‘all-weather’ fields, a fancy way of saying gravel. If you’re trying to keep kids fit and interested in sport for life, sending them out to play on a patch of gravel sounds a little offside.
Artificial turf fields don’t come cheap. But other fields are in the works in North Vancouver – primarily because the public turned out to say they were worth paying for.
Let’s keep that team effort going.
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