It's been known for a while that the pool needs repair. In July, The Record reported that it was using water at a rate of a thousand litres per day more than a similarly-sized pool with better upkeep. Approximately $2.2 million is needed for repair costs, and the university has been unsuccessful in raising that money. And as you'd expect, no pool on campus means the swim team is...well, certainly dry, but maybe not all that high. Student-athletes are already considering transferring to other schools.
However, today we see a possible "life raft" from that other university down the road:
UW athletic director Bob Copeland admitted his school has plans to build a multimillion-dollar aquatic complex that could fill the void, but won't say when or even if the project will break ground.(Waterloo wants to build another multimillion-dollar complex? Of course they do.)
Laurier should be okay with this--they didn't bother talking to governments about funding the pool because of rumours of a UW facility, and here we have not just rumours, but plans--although it's not clear what will happen in the short term. Waterloo's facilities aren't available at convenient times for Laurier's athletes, otherwise they'd help them out there. Also, there's a tournament scheduled to take place at WLU on January 24 and I won't pretend to know if they have an alternate site planned for that.
Hopefully this all shakes out such that those who want to swim and compete can still do so, but it would just be too precious from this point of view if WLU's world-class swim team ended up using the University of Waterloo's new facilities as their "home." Can you major in karma at Laurier?
Related:
WLU plans to close Region's only Olympic-length pool [Karen Kawawada, The Record]
Hope fades for Laurier pool [Greg Mercer, The Record]
Pool's future bleak [Jeremy Trembley, WLU's The Cord Weekly]
Plug pulled on Laurier swim team [Christine Rivet, The Record]
UW can't say too much as clock ticks on Laurier pool [Christine Rivet, The Record]
Not sure if I would call the swim team "world class". Don't think they have medalled at OUs in YEARS.
ReplyDeleteI don't know enough about the team to say either way, but I got that description from The Record:
ReplyDelete"It was a really big blow to us and to the community," said Nathan Frick, 18, who came to WLU from Bermuda two years ago to swim for the varsity Golden Hawks because of their "world-class" reputation.