Community groups provide financial support for Stockade facelift
Two community groups made significant financial contributions towards improvements at a well-used public facility in Swift Current.
The City of Swift Current received donations of $25,000 from the Junior SunDogs Volleyball Club and $15,000 from the Swift Current Soccer Association for the installation of a new a high-performance synthetic sports flooring system and other improvements at the Stockade.
City Events and Program Manager Nicole Spenst said the contributions from these two organizations made a real difference.
“It was a project that we started in the summer of 2021 to retrofit the Stockade building to make it more user-friendly for our community,” she noted. “We got the support of the Swift Current Soccer Association and the Junior SunDogs Volleyball Club to help us with the retrofit. It provided us an opportunity to do a little bit more than just to refurbish the floor, which was in dire need of repair.”
The retrofit cost of $376,236 included the floor replacement and additional renovations. The installation of the Pulastic flooring was a significant portion of the entire cost. The tender of $265,190.10 for the floor replacement was approved by City council in May 2021.
The previous floor was in use since 2007, when the Swift Current Soccer Association purchased a used indoor floor from the Soccer Centre in Regina. It reached the end of its life after many years of use in the Stockade. Spenst noted the old floor was a compromise, because it was originally made to fit a different facility.
“There was always movement with that floor that caused some safety concerns as well,” she said. “This new floor, being a pour and play and actually fitting the Stockade surface, provides a great surface that is userfriendly and very safe for users to use because of the condition and the compaction of the floor. And it is multipurpose. So a variety of activities can take place on it.”
The new floor has a lifespan warranty of 30 years and it is suitable for use by a variety of community groups, varying from soccer to volleyball and basketball.
“We have pickleball users that are playing on this floor,” she said. “We can have dodge ball, floor hockey, football. It just provides more opportunities for the usage of the floor.”
The retrofit involved some building repairs and several other improvements to benefit the user experience of the facility. It included the installation of safety netting and new divider netting that allows the large floor area to be split into four sections.
“That allows us to divide the floor surface into half courts or four courts,” she explained. “We can have up to four volleyball courts going at the same time or have four different soccer games or we can have pickle ball on a half court and a mom’s play program on a quarter of the floor and a Forever in Motion or chair yoga on the other quarter. So it really allows us the flexibility to make it multi-purpose to have multiple activities going on at one time.”
Other improvements are the installation of water bottle fill stations, wheelchair friendly ramps for floor access, and four tip-up rolling bleachers, each providing seating for 30 people.
“We were able to get four tip-up rolling bleachers for community viewing,” she said. “That allows them to be inside the lobby for spectator use or depending on the events, if it’s a tournament and they’re just doing half floor, we can set bleachers out on the floor to get a closer spectator view.”
Kevin Theise, the president of the Junior SunDogs Volleyball Club, said the club decided to allocate funding towards this retrofit to assist the City with the cost of the new flooring. The club began using the Stockade last year.
“The flooring they had in there before was tile flooring, which was very slippery,” he said. “It didn’t have a lot of grip and it just didn’t hold up. The flooring they got in there now has some good grip on it and it’s just a really good floor for sports.”
He noted that the new divider netting provides a lot of flexibility for activities during practice sessions and games.
“You can have four courts going at all times,” he said. “The netting just provides a see-through that you can see what’s happening on the other courts, but also prevention of volleyballs going into other courts as they’re playing a game. So that works really well.”
The club has received positive feedback from other teams during tournaments and the Stockade offers an easier alternative for the club than using different school gymnasiums.
“Before we had to rent numerous facilities throughout the city,” he explained. “We had teams and parents in about three or four different locations within the city and this brings everybody together and let them play out of one building. So it’s kind of the home for the SunDogs for the next few years.”
The club has seen a growing number of players this year, especially female players. He estimated that 90 per cent of their practices and tournaments will be played at the Stockade.
“We still have to use some schools in the city, just because we have to share the facility with soccer and the other events that are going on, but we have a pretty good gym time as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “We just have to rent maybe a gym somewhere else once in a while.”
Chad Striker, the technical director of the Swift Current Soccer Association, said the new floor in the Stockade will make it easier to host tournaments.
“We’ve been able to host two tournaments indoor, which we haven’t hosted more than one club since I’ve been involved as a coach in the indoor program,” he said. “That’s been six to eight years we haven’t hosted more than one club. To be able to open the Stockade to three or for different clubs in one weekend is pretty exciting for our kids to play in front of their parents and the grandparents, because we always travel.”
The old floor did not make it possible to host more than a few teams from a single club in the past. The new floor is similar to the Pulastic pour floors found in gymnasiums.
“It’s very consistent to what has been built in gyms and we play a bit of a hybrid indoor soccer Futsal in there,” he said. “It works well with the Futsal balls and indoors is a nice game. It’s fast and it improves kids’ ball skills immensely, because of the nature of the floor. It runs fast and provides those opportunities that forces them to make quicker decisions because of the fast floor.”
The Soccer Association is growing and there are around 75 more indoor players this season compared to last year. They have a total of around 290 players this year. As a result, they still have to rent a school gymnasium, because the U9 and U11 programs have too many players to accommodate all sessions at the Stockade.
Striker appreciates the benefits of the Stockade facelift, including the convenience of the divider netting. He also remarked on the service provided by City staff to make the use of the facility even more convenient.
“I have to comment on the level of the service that our City workers provide for us,” he said. “I’ve been to other communities and when renting the field for an hour, you have to make it fit for your programming. And this is not the case in Swift Current. They do a really good job of making sure that the nets are where they’re supposed to be and they’re really great to work with.”