Recently, Gil Penalosa from the Walk and Bike for Life Organization made a presentation to city council. He explained that Mississauga was preparing to build 16 soccer fields in Erindale Park.

Penalosa showed a map of the soccer fields, then showed a second map where the fields are spread out all over Mississauga. This is a better solution, he said, because now all the participants can walk or bike to the soccer fields for a higher quality of life.

This is a sound idea, and applied in Sudbury suggests that instead of building a group of soccer fields at Frood and Lasalle, whatever funds are available should be used to build or upgrade fields all around the community so that we can walk or bike to them for improved quality of life.

It is impossible to walk and bike to arenas during the winter, but the idea of bringing the arenas closer to the people can be achieved. The users of arenas are mostly students, and in the same way that gymnasiums are attached to high schools, there should be an arena made available to schools as well.

Arenas are expensive, so the schools would have to be brought closer to the arenas. For example an arena could be built between Collège Boréal and École secondaire Macdonald-Cartier.

Then Sudbury Secondary School, instead of renovating the school, could sell their land and buildings, getting a very good price for them, and buy land next to Boréal and build a new school where they would be able to share the arena.

Marymount College has the problem of not having any land where students can exercise. They could relocate to the Boréal area as well, and have access to a huge recreational area.

When students play hockey in the evening, they must be accompanied by a coach. There has to be security for the building and health care must be on hand to look after injuries. The students must be transported to the arena and then back home. This causes a lot of extended and overtime hours to be worked and carries a high transportation cost. With schools clustered around an arena, the students can play hockey during the regular day hours.

All the students would be able to use the arena, especially those for whom costs are a burden. Students needing regular access to arenas could choose to attend these schools while students interested in other activities would choose other schools. The arena would also be used evenings by other groups of people from the community.

Louis Delongchamp
Greater Sudbury