The Surrey campus parking lot sits empty following the cancellation of the recreation department's road hockey tournament

It was the beautiful Saturday morning. Warm. Sunny. The perfect morning to play some road hockey.

But, instead of the sounds of hockey sticks hitting pavement and the cheers of spectators, the only sounds in the parking lot at Kwantlen’s Surrey campus was the occasional passing car.

Thee Kwantlen Athletics and Recreation department was forced to cancel its road hockey tournament that was suppose to take place on Saturday, Oct. 2.

“There wasn’t enough teams,” John Stewart, recreation events coordinator, said. According to Stewart, only three teams and three individuals registered for the tournament.

“We wanted this to be a viable tournament. We actually lose money on this event. So, we needed a minimum of six teams for the tournament to go ahead,” Stewart said.

Unfortunately for Kwantlen Recreation, failed sporting events are becoming a recurring theme.

“We’ve had some successes, but it’s pretty hit and miss,” said Stewart.

Stewart believes that the struggles the department has had in generating student support for these types of events, is their inability to get their message out. With very few people following them on either Facebook or Twitter, flyers posted around campus, announcements on myKwantlen and word of mouth aren’t doing enough to get students interested and participating in these events.

“We have such a small [recreation] area down here,” said Stewart. “A lot of people don’t know what things are happening.”

To combat this, Stewart and the recreation department are trying a new strategy in order “to bring rec to the students.”

According to Stewart, the department is going to set up a recreation committee, made up of members from the recreation department, the KSA and volunteer students. The idea is to get the students more involved in the process and tell the recreation department what kinds of events interest them.

Stewart hopes that by getting students involved, it will create more enthusiasm in the student community for events such as the road hockey tournament.

The gravel fields at Newton Athletic Park (NAP) could be the future home of Kwantlen's own turf field. NAP is about two minutes away from the Surrey campus. (Katie Lawrence photo)

Plans are being drawn up between Kwantlen and the City of Surrey to put a turf soccer field at Newton Athletic Park, down the street from the Surrey campus.

Nothing is official yet, but Gordon Lee, vice-president of finance and administration at Kwantlen, feels that partnering with the city to build the field for Kwantlen’s use would greatly benefit the school.

“We have never put a lot of money into athletics. Over the past 10 years, we’ve created a gym at one campus, and we’ve developed varsity teams in four sports (basketball, soccer, badminton and golf), but again, we have never invested much in facilities,” said Lee.

Lee said that the new field would include a Kwantlen scoreboard, the university’s logo at midfield and seating for 500, but the field wouldn’t be used exclusively by Kwantlen. Since the school is sharing the cost of the field, which Lee estimates to be around $2.5 million, with the city, Surrey soccer teams would be able to use the field. Kwantlen would have priority on which times they get the field.

“The city will go ahead if we don’t partner with them, although we do think it is in the interest of the university to enter into a partnership arrangement with the city to gain access to a field which we can use that would be ours,” Lee said.

For the past five to seven years, Kwantlen has been looking into putting in an athletic field for the school’s use, but there are a couple of challenges that need to be overcome before anything can be put into action.

“There’s not a lot of space and, unfortunately, we need the space right now for parking lots,” said Lee. “The other issue is the cost of putting in a turf field, which is really the only way to go in our climate.”

But now that the field can be built at Newton Athletic Park and with cost-sharing with Surrey, both of those challenges seem to be remedied. All that’s necessary for  field construction to start is a stamp of approval from Kwantlen’s Board of Governors.

Lee said Kwantlen’s share of the field cost will be taken out of university resources; none of the money will come out the students’ pockets.

If everything goes ahead as planned, construction of the field will start early in the new year and it should be ready for the 2010 soccer season.

In the future, Lee said that Kwantlen hopes to expand fitness and sports facilities at all campuses to get everyone involved in either competitive or recreational sports, but the problem is the lack of space.

“The Richmond campus is even more of a problem, because there’s no land space around there at all. We have been talking with the City of Richmond about using the Oval after the Olympics and that’s a big possibility for the indoor sports,” he said.