The Calgary Minor Soccer Association says more indoor turf facilities are needed to keep up to the sport’s record growth in the city.
The CMSA is reporting a year-over-year participation growth rate of 12 per cent as it starts its winter season this weekend, beginning two weeks earlier than usual to accommodate the growing number of players.
The organization says Calgary has fallen far behind other places in Canada when it comes to funding and building indoor pitches, as the city’s population growth increases rapidly.
“We’re up 120 new teams, again another 12 per cent growth year-over-year,” said Carlo Bruneau, executive director of the Calgary Minor Soccer Association. “The popularity of the sport has never been higher.”
“I would say Calgary is lagging behind, it’s below the average in Canada. For a population of 1.6 million in the Calgary area with 30,000 kids playing soccer, it’s just not enough,” he said, referring to existing indoor facilities.
Bruneau says the success of Canada’s national soccer teams, Cavalry FC’s progress and the emergence of the Canadian Premier League, as well as the upcoming World Cup in North America two years from now are all helping to boost interest and participation.
“We’re running out of space to play and train but we want to make sure we can evolve the game and deliver the game at a high quality level and have players move on to universities and professional teams,” he said.
This CMSA winter season has 6,400 games scheduled with just three city facilities to host them: the Shane Homes West Soccer Centre, the Calgary Soccer Centre and the Shouldice Seasonal Dome, which came into use in 2022.
The Calgary Soccer Centre pitches are hard court surfaces, rather than artificial soccer-specific turf, requiring the use of indoor shoes. This results in different game play than turf and leaves kids more prone to injury from falls on the hard surface.
Bruneau says in an ideal world his organization needs around 6,550 extra hours of indoor playing time, which could mean five or six more new facilities.
The city is building one new indoor artificial turf pitch and dome at the Calgary Soccer Centre in the southeast, which will be ready next year.
“We’re taking one of the turf outdoor fields and converting it,” said Heather Johnson, director of recreation and social programs with the City of Calgary.
“It will triple the capacity of bookings we can put onto that one single field.”
There are more indoor facilities in the works as part of new field house projects, but some are still many years away and with question marks over funding.
“We have the Belmont Field House. Construction will begin in 2025 with completion in 2027. That’s a full size FIFA field,” said Johnson.
Johnson says the city also has a new athletic park planned for the northeast with a field house included, which is only partially funded due to cost increases.
“Once those three facilities come online that probably doubles or triples our indoor field capacity,” said Johnson. “Those are some of the investments that council has already made.”
Johnson notes the number of Calgarians grew last year by about the population of Medicine Hat, which itself has two field houses.
“We know as we soar towards a population of two million that we need additional investment in high quality indoor practice and play for soccer and other sports,” said Johnson.
The CMSA says the future of youth soccer in the city depends on those projects and more coming to fruition.
More than 1,000 soccer teams are competing this week as the indoor season gets underway.