Things are looking good for recreation in Strathmore and at the newly opened Strathmore Motor Products Sports Centre. There was a delegation from the Town of Strathmore at the June 4 meeting of Wheatland County council.

Tracy Simpson, director of community and protective services and Mark Pretzlaff, recreation manager gave the council and update on usage and community feedback about the sports centre. The sports centre is a joint venture between the Town of Strathmore, Wheatland County and Golden Hills School Division.

The presentation went over statistics about usage at the facility per month. The facility has been open for about four months.

And it went over the number of hours community groups, or sports group used the facility.

Pretzlaff said, “Some of the anecdotal information we had was the courts are extremely popular. The drop-in basketball, badminton, and pickle ball were some of the biggest usage of the facility.”

He explained the temporary artificial turf was installed with the help of Wheatland County in mid-February.

“While that impacted some of the usage for our soccer and lacrosse users, we still had a number of drop ins whether it was baseball, or flag football that were able to use the artificial turf until the new one was installed,” he said.

Presently the latest enhancements to the facility were the addition of artificial turf, lacrosse boards, glass and netting, and bleachers. Right now they are installing four cross court basketball nets.

There is now permanent signage and banner foam wraps. The signage includes information about the rules in the facility and emergency information.

Last weekend the town hosted the Redneck Rumble annual lacrosse tournament. Part of it was hosted in the facility and at the Strathmore Family Centre.

They also spoke about some of the additions they are looking into installing in the facility like a climbing wall, a batting cage, or a golf simulator.

Simpson spoke about the new recreation software that the Town of Strathmore has recently launched. The software allows online registration and sales for recreation.

“With that we are going to have more swipe access, which is going to make utilization with all of our recreation facilities including the sports centre more easy for people,” she said.

They also spoke about launching this month an all-access pass to get patrons into all recreation facilities in town.