After being benched for two seasons, members of Calgary’s lacrosse community have resurrected their fight to score a land lease from the city.In the summer of 2009, The Calgary Winter Lacrosse League was forced to stop using the Legacy Centre at 2834 Falaise Ave. S.W., after its lease there was not renewed.
That put nearly 7,000 athletes, including lacrosse and floor hockey players, out of a regular space for practices and games.
“That left everybody kind of homeless; the entire league disintegrated,” said Kelly Feser, who sits on the league’s board and is also a coach with a teenage son who plays lacrosse.
Frustrated with having to take two winter seasons off, lacrosse players, coaches and supporters are lobbying the city for a leasable lot six to 10 acres large, where they can build a $4-million facility with four arenas.
“From 9 a.m. to midnight every day it would be used,” said Feser, adding the advocates — some of whom belong to a Facebook group called Lacrosse Army — can’t apply for grants or secure funding without a land commitment.
However, the urgency is great as a facility would need to be built this summer so players won’t miss a third indoor season beginning in the fall.
Brian Couronne, another board member and father to a lacrosse player, said demand was already outweighing supply at the group’s old facility, which only offered one space that wasn’t even the proper size.
“When we were at the Legacy Centre, we were so successful we were turning groups down,” he said.
“That was a sign back then that there was a crisis of dry floor pads.”
To read the rest of the story by Jenna McMurray of the Calgary Sun, please click here http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2011/02/21/17356621.html
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