General Sports and Recreation News

[panamaniac]

I haven't had the impression that the Multiplex project takes Summer Games needs into account, but I really don't know.

Free land and partnerships with Conestoga College will mean the new Cambridge multiplex facility will go ahead as planned ... IMHO.

My point was that the new Cambridge site will be up and functioning before 2021. I do believe it will be the only 50 M accredited pool in the Region. Laurier's 50 meter pool is too narrow to qualify as a FINA facility.

Ahh, I did not realize it was a 50 metre pool.  In that case, assuming it has enough seating, it will be ready in good time if the Region/Guelph are awarded the Games.

[jamincan]

If they end up having a 50m pool at Conestoga, that's fantastic news for me. Granted, I'm a resident of Kitchener, so not necessarily their target demographic.

[zanate]

Yes!  This lot is much needed; parking often overflows onto the road.  This is a great "hidden gem" park, we really like going here.

My three year old grand-nephew's favourite hiking, turtle-spotting, and insect-hunting destination!

Two weekends ago, we spotted a pair of Eastern Bluebirds in Huron natural area. Always nice to see these fairly uncommon birds, especially inside city limits.

[Viewfromthe42]

I saw those as well! Either last weekend or two weekends ago. Three turtles in the pond, and several snakes in the eastern half of the trails' wooded areas.

[panamaniac]

If they end up having a 50m pool at Conestoga, that's fantastic news for me. Granted, I'm a resident of Kitchener, so not necessarily their target demographic.

Definitely not, just an accidental beneficiary! 

[panamaniac]

I saw those as well! Either last weekend or two weekends ago. Three turtles in the pond, and several snakes in the eastern half of the trails' wooded areas.

If I tell my grand-nephew about the snakes, we'll never get him out of there!  We saw a beaver and a muskrat at Lakeside Park last week - he was intrigued, but I'm not sure he quite understood what he was seeing.  I was more impressed - Lakeside is not as attractive as the Huron Natural Area, but finding wildlife in what is basically the centre of the city is always interesting.

[kitborn]

Free land and partnerships with Conestoga College will mean the new Cambridge multiplex facility will go ahead as planned ... IMHO.

My point was that the new Cambridge site will be up and functioning before 2021. I do believe it will be the only 50 M accredited pool in the Region. Laurier's 50 meter pool is too narrow to qualify as a FINA facility.

I understand that the Conestoga land in Cambridge is the desired location for a sports complex. There has been a fare amount of complaining about this location from Cambridge residents. Is it really because of location or is it because Conestoga College will have access to it? Location is great for 401, Kitchener, accommodations and transit.

[panamaniac]

I understand that the Conestoga land in Cambridge is the desired location for a sports complex. There has been a fare amount of complaining about this location from Cambridge residents. Is it really because of location or is it because Conestoga College will have access to it? Location is great for 401, Kitchener, accommodations and transit.

My sense is that it's really because it's not in Galt.  But nobody in Cambridge would be likely to say that.

[darts]

I understand that the Conestoga land in Cambridge is the desired location for a sports complex. There has been a fare amount of complaining about this location from Cambridge residents. Is it really because of location or is it because Conestoga College will have access to it? Location is great for 401, Kitchener, accommodations and transit.

Because it is closer to kitchener than cambridge, even for people in preston  they will have to go through a slow section to get to it, there are other places that would be faster. It isn't on the way to anything in cambridge either. 

It doesn't help that they are also looking to close down 1 or 2 other buildings with ice rinks and relocate the ice surface there from locations in town.

[Viewfromthe42]

KPL, WPL, RIM Park; Waterloo and Kitchener have plenty of facilities where it's easier to get to from the city that it's not a part of.

[panamaniac]

KPL, WPL, RIM Park; Waterloo and Kitchener have plenty of facilities where it's easier to get to from the city that it's not a part of.

True, but K and W don't have the Cambridge dynamic, do they?

[Viewfromthe42]

KPL, WPL, RIM Park; Waterloo and Kitchener have plenty of facilities where it's easier to get to from the city that it's not a part of.

True, but K and W don't have the Cambridge dynamic, do they?

I view a decent amount of the complaints about location as "It's not in my neighbourhood, I could imagine a better location, therefore it's bad." Interesting, since right now they're arguing for a more central, costly location, rather than one that's less central, if easily 401-accessible, in contrast to the Regional Courthouse, where they argued for a more costly (multiple locations) system, or at least one closer to Cambridge and thus less central to the region.

But it's a common feeling in KW as well. Go into UpTown, and you'll find multiple neighbourhood associations who will speak supportively about letting more people live, shop, and use non-car transportation in the area, but each neighbourhood on its own believes that someone else should see these accommodations, and that their particular neighbourhood is unsuitable for it. My old neighbourhood, now UpTown North, is seeing homes filled with mould, disrepair, even bat colonies pushed for heritage designation, more likely as a means of preventing change than of preserving anything, but I'm on the side of the spectrum that feels that UpTown and Kitchener (~30%) already has enough untouchable land and even larger effectively untouchable land due to sight line preservation (interestingly, this was recently shot down at the OMB as a reason to deny development, regarding a Toronto application), that we don't need to preserve the umpteenth style-X house that's nearly falling apart (whereas I can understand and support desire to preserve, if not always by leaving completely untouched, truly unique and non-similar heritage places), nor allow "our road" or "our tree" to be protected from the evils of bike lanes or sidewalks, where every instance of this is viewed as though it would be destroying all properties and all trees, stymying even small but extremely helpful tradeoff changes.

[panamaniac]

What you're describing (and more) is stronger in the Uptown area than it is in the core of Kitchener, although one can perceive things beginning to shift with the demographic changes taking place in a couple of central Kitchener neighbourhoods.  We'd likely have to agree to disagree on heritage issues, but the dynamic in K-W overall remains more cooperative than sometimes seems to be the case in Cambridge, where the old "bits" still seem jealous of each other at times.  Perhaps there are advantages to K and W still being separate municipalties.

[darts]

KPL, WPL, RIM Park; Waterloo and Kitchener have plenty of facilities where it's easier to get to from the city that it's not a part of.

For this Cambridge has 7 rinks with 2 that from the way council are talking may be closed, so if it is built with 4 rinks almost half the rinks will be on the edge of town.  There has been some talk about using the soccer fields at Riverside park and most people are pretty agreeable to that so I don't think it is a preston/galt/hespeler thing.

I don't know, kitchener's most out of the way facility is at sportsworld and it is 2 rinks out of 11, closest equivalent would be if kitchener decided that they needed to have the same amount of ice per capita as cambridge and wanted to build 6 new rinks and decommission 3 and build it next to the airport, where it is blocked from the city by the river.

Rim Park has development around it, although not central, might be different if it was built next to some kitchener development.

[tomh009]

RIM Park was built 15 years ago when the area was basically farmland, bordering Woolwich Township. Definitely not central then, not very central even now.

New sports complexes are rarely built in central locations as they need a fair bit of empty land for facilities and parking, and central land is expensive. In Kitchener, Activa Sportsplex is the newest one (just off Hanson Drive) and it is far from being central.

As to Cambridge rinks closing, the way I read the news articles, they said "one or two rinks might be closed". Nothing definite, not the number nor the location.