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JANE MacKAY

We have lots of issues around participation in sport and physical activity in Nova Scotia and a CFL football stadium is not going to solve any of them.

If you believe any of the online statistics and discussions on the topic, a stadium could well contribute to worsening the situation.

According to KidSport NS in Nova Scotia, over 37 per cent of children between 12 and 17 years old are either overweight or obese. The national average is 26 per cent.

The national average for obesity in the adult population is 18.3 per cent, but in Nova Scotia 25.1 per cent of people are obese.

Sport Nova Scotia says 33 per cent of children do not participate in organized sport.

It is estimated that only 9 per cent of children get the recommended amount of exercise.

There is a gender and income gap in organized sport participation. One third of men participate in sport and one sixth of women. Of the 108 coaches at the 2014 Winter Olympics, only 11 were women.

Less than one in 10 households with income less than $20,000 participate in sport, and four in 10 in the $30,000 to $50,000 income bracket.

In Canada, participation in organized sport peaks at ages 10 to 13. Adolescent girls drop out at a rate six times higher than boys.

Girls drop out because there are fewer opportunities at high school and college, personal safety and transportation issues and lack of coaching and facilities as they get older and more competitive.

Media coverage of women’s sport is said to be 1.3 to 1.6 per cent. You just have to check the local sports section — or probably any sport media coverage — for a week to see this illustrated.

There is a fair amount of evidence that the movement toward elite sport has contributed to the decline of participation in sport in general. As sport becomes more competitive, it becomes more expensive, takes much more practice and training time, coaches need more training and leagues are more spread out so travel is an issue.

Do we all need to aspire for the Olympics or professional sports? No, but you only need to look at the history of skating/hockey rinks in HRM, Dartmouth in particular, to see the trend to elitism. We sold our two community rinks to elite sport schools and built a “fourplex” in the middle of Burnside, where there is not even bus service but yet another “athletic” school across the street.

Interestingly the Fourplex’s website states “it is minutes from Dartmouth Crossing.” Which has what to do with anything? Unless, of course, you are interested in promoting tournament play, perhaps.

There are a variety of suggestions by sport organizations and researchers to increase participation. None of them include putting public money into professional sports and their facilities.

Some suggestions you will find if you look are:

Less than one in 10 households with income less than $20,000 participate in sport, and four in 10 in the $30,000 to $50,000 income bracket. - Contributed

Ask kids what they want.

Reintroduce free play (unorganized or pick-up games).

Encourage sport sampling.

Revitalize downtown leagues.

Think small rink and field size.

Design for development.

Equal playing time.

Multi-sport.

Different size of equipment, i.e., smaller balls, sticks, bats.

Train all coaches, don’t put more emphasis on the elite ones. Certification for all levels.

Emphasise prevention and reporting of bullying, hazing, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Why would we be thinking about building a stadium which emphasises participation in football?

In 2017, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary had sharp declines in CFL attendance.

Some American schools are seeing such a decline in registration in high school football that they cannot field a team. It is happening in Canada, too. Parents (and kids) are worried about injuries, for one thing, and immigrants are more often interested in lacrosse and rugby.

Football does not appear on any list of the top 10 popular sports in Canada that I could find. Soccer has the highest participation by Canadian children. Other sports which on the top of lists of popular sports are hockey, basketball, baseball, lacrosse and tennis.

The fastest growing sports tend to be track and field, cross-country and soccer.

Shannon Park. - Ryan Taplin

If the decision is made to build a stadium, I believe Shannon Park is the last place it should be placed.

This may be the most valuable piece of real estate in the Maritimes at present.

Have we not learned anything from the Cogswell interchange experience? Let’s just pave over prime waterfront and potential green space for a giant parking lot. Let’s just toss Halifax’s opportunity to make ourselves distinct, stand out in a crowd of global oceanside cities.

People in a stadium do not come to look at the view of the harbour or the bridges.

Put the stadium somewhere where there is accessibility, where the fans attending games could contribute ridership to the much talked about light-rail to the Bedford and Sackville Windsor areas.

Maybe the recently announced Burnside-Sackville connector holds a clue?

Build community participation facilities on the waterfront. Accessible, walking and, yes, cross-country running. What about amphitheatre seating facing the harbour so that a stage on a barge (yes, other waterside cities have them) can be anchored there and perhaps moved to other harbour locations from time to time?

Or a public greenhouse; think Kew Glass House or the Botanical Gardens in Montreal or the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton. We could even have palm trees. Heat could come from the harbour, like it does in Alderney Landing. Or perhaps Nova Scotia Power has some surplus to share from Tufts Cove.

What about something for North Dartmouth that doesn’t include traffic jams and the pollution that brings? Do we even know how many sport facility arenas and stadiums take an hour to exit? The Ottawa Senators, for one.

A stadium on the waterfront will do little for the average citizen’s participation in activity or sport. So much else we could build there would.

If we build something unique, at a human scale, participatory, reflective of us (football is not), the world will come.

Jane MacKay lives in Dartmouth.

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