Pierrefonds/Roxboro eyes artificial turf

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Following announcements in 2007 of upcoming artificial playing fields in Dorval and Dollard des Ormeaux, the Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough is also seeking a new outdoor soccer turf for Grier Park.

At last week’s monthly borough meeting, council approved a service contract with the Direction des grands parcs et de la nature en ville (DGPNV), which will prepare a dossier containing plans and cost estimates for the artificial field to be forwarded to the federal and provincial governments in hopes of receiving subsidies for the project.

“There are bursaries available that we didn’t know about before,” said borough communications officer Johanne Palladini, adding soccer associations in the borough have been asking for such a turf for a while. Palladini said a new turf would mean soccer players would have less of a delay to get on the field in the spring, instead of waiting for the ground to dry to avoid damaging the playing field. She could not yet estimate how much the artificial field would cost.

According to Sandra Patterson, president of the Pierrefonds Women’s Soccer Association, a new field would be welcome news from the approximately 150-member club.

“We’d be quite thrilled,” she said, adding an artificial turf could mean better play and fewer injuries.

“I would think it’s going to be a lot better for our knees and our backs, and not as hard on our joints. Sometimes there are a lot of pits in the (natural) fields, and that can mean ankle injuries,” she said, adding she hopes the borough will also consider an indoor field in the future, so associations would not have to travel to the Catalogna Soccerplexe in Lachine to play in the winter. “We would really love it. We love to play.”