Excessive amounts of snow leave Annapolis Valley athletic facilities closed

Spring in the Annapolis Valley usually means athletic facilities are open, Valley United Soccer hits the turf to begin their Tier 1 tryouts and the Kentville Wildcats begin fielding a new season. Except for this year.

The amount of snow still remaining on the ground in mid April has delayed the opening of numerous Annapolis Valley athletic facilities.

Rich Johnson, facility co-ordinator at the Acadia Athletic Complex, insures safe and proper use of the facility’s venues. He said due to the nature of the fields at Acadia, they will remain inaccessible for a while.

“I just came inside 25 minutes ago from the turf and it (Raymond Field) still has snow two-feet deep in some places,” Johnson said April 10.

“The Dyke fields are below sea level so it’ll take a while for them to become dry enough for use.”

Johnson’s biggest concern right now is getting the layers of snow and ice off Raymond Field.

“People are going to be chomping at the bit when they see green.”

Unfortunately for these eager individuals, it’s all a waiting game for the field to clear up.

“It would be very cost prohibitive in man power to shovel off the field,” Johnson said. “Also, we would have nowhere to put the snow.”

Johnson said that with a couple days of good weather, Raymond Field can get back on track in opening for the season.

“As soon as the artificial turf is exposed to the sun it holds in heat,” he said. “So we’re hoping we get some help from the sun.”

In four years as facility co-ordinator and his previous four years at Acadia, Johnson said Raymond Field has never been out of use for this long.

“I have never seen Raymond Field snow covered at this time of year before.”

Valley United forced indoors

With the outdoor facilities behind schedule in opening, this has directly affected athletic organizations that use them.

Dana Ramirez, president of Valley United Soccer, said that even planning with extra precautions, the organization has still managed to run into troubles.

“We scheduled tryouts a week later this year to avoid conflicts with weather,” Ramirez said. “Obviously, we are having conflicts anyway.”

Initially, the first round of Tier 1 tryouts for Valley United were scheduled to take place at the indoor soccer facility in Kentville, with the second round of tryouts taking place on Raymond Field on April 14.

“Due to the weather circumstances, we had to move the first two tryout sessions indoors,” Ramirez said. “Hopefully, we are able to have the third session outdoors.”

Moving indoors to select a team that plays outdoors isn’t ideal but it is a good alternative, Ramirez said.

“People get excited when they play on Raymond Field,” she said. “Traditionally, that’s how we do it. So when we have to go play indoors, some people lose that excitement.”

The biggest challenge for Valley United is getting through all the tryouts indoors, on a smaller field, with an increased cost.

“With tryouts outdoors, two can go on simultaneously,” Ramirez said. “The size of the indoor field only allows for one tryout at a time.”

The move indoors also makes the evaluation of players not as accurate.

“It’s better to evaluate players in the setting in which they’ll be playing games,” Ramirez said. “You can see more of a player when they play outdoors.”

With more field space outside, it chal- lenges the player more. Evaluators will be able to see more of their attributes like, vision, speed in open field and long range shooting.

Due to the delay in starting tryouts, Valley United will be a little bit late in getting their teams selected compared to the city, Ramirez said.

“We will probably have teams selected a week later than we wanted to,” she said. “We will be a little bit behind, but we should ok overall.”

Valley United usually practices on grass fields by mid-May but that will be delayed until the fields are dry enough for use.

Ramirez is hoping everything from here on out is smooth sailing so they don’t suffer any more setbacks.