Soccer dome will depend on student intramurals

By Nicolina Leone

leon0080@algonquincollege.com

Students need to make use of the domed soccer field during the winter to ensure they retain the privilege to play on it.

Ron Port, administrator of athletic operations, explained that it’s expensive to have the dome used, $20,000 a month just to heat, and about $4,000 a month for lighting. And then there are the costs to staff it. It isn’t feasible to run the dome without interest from the students to go and play, he said.

Once the interest is there, the athletic staff finds out what time students would use the dome most and set up the hours around that.

“If there was a group of 50 that wanted to go at 10 a.m. we’d accommodate that,” said Rhonda Giguere, campus recreation coordinator, “Students see it up and start asking ‘When can we go in it?’”

The dome was operational Nov. 8 but open field time was not posted. When Port arrived from British Columbia on Nov. 10, where he was supporting the men’s varsity soccer team at nationals, he came back to phone messages and e-mails inquiring about open field time.

“The students pay for the damn facility,” said Port in defending the students needs. He had open field time posted by Nov. 12 for between noon and 6 p.m.

A portion of tuition goes towards athletic funding. Along with varsity teams and the gymnasium, this includes the soccer field-- $15 per student-- per semester. That’s a total of $30 per student for the year.

Students can not only look forward to soccer, but touch football and ultimate, sometimes even cricket. Next semester there will be intramurals between noon and 6 p.m. Soccer will be on Monday and Wednesday, touch football on Tuesday, and ultimate on Thursday.

Open field time will be revaluated based on when students will use the dome most.