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The city will bite the bullet and spend $500,000 from a parkland fund to replace the harsh artificial turf at Minto Field, a decision that one field hockey coach calls “a bad deal for taxpayers.”

Brian Lee, who coaches field hockey in Ottawa, said the city is spending a large sum of money to appease one football club, while field hockey teams will be left without a field during the turf swap.

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Lee believes “the quality of field hockey facility will be degraded” and the turf will likely lose its national-level standard for the sport.

Dan Chenier, the city’s general manager of parks and recreation, confirmed that the city will replace the relatively new artificial turf with another turf with slightly longer blades after consulting with groups who use Minto Field at the Nepean Sportsplex.

The city paid $1.3 million to upgrade the field from the old AstroTurf in 2015, but football clubs, particularly the Myers Riders, flagged the unsafe abrasiveness of the new turf, forcing teams to find other fields out of their district.