As many of you have already heard, Sudbury is among the four finalist cities bidding to host the 2021 Canada Summer Games - competition is coming from Ottawa; Niagara region; and a grouping that includes Kitchener-Waterloo/Guelph/Cambridge.
The CSG selection committee will be visiting Sudbury all day on Aug. 26, primarily to get a first-hand view of a number of the facilities that would be in use for the Games (and also possibly scope out sites of proposed new facilities that would be built).
Like many of you, I have been part of countless discussions over the years, lamenting the lack of quality sporting venues in Sudbury that would be considered on par with similar sized cities in Ontario.
The awarding of the Games would inject, automatically, nine million dollars in sports infrastructure spending in the host city, with sources split evenly in chunks of $3 million between the municipality, and provincial and federal governments.
This alone should be reason enough to drum up support for the bid within the Sudbury sports community.
But as you all know, the benefits run much deeper than that. The geographic realities of living in Northern Ontario means that every opportunity we have to sell visitors on the area is important, because Sudbury is not necessarily right along their route, as sporting parents from the South travel to events across the province.
Every sports tourism visitor to the city is a potential future post-secondary student, a future professional moving up to help fill voids in the workforce, a future retirement candidate, anxious to move away from the hustle and bustle of big city life, and reconnect with nature.
If increasing our future tax base is important to you, if building a sporting infrastructure that our children and grand-children can be proud to call their own is something you care about, if finding a way to dispel long-held myths about the images that come to mind when those who have never visited Sudbury think of our little piece of heaven is worthwhile, then simply take a few moments and spread the word about the Games.
Let's get Sudbury excited.
Randy Pascal is regular contributor to Sudbury.com and owner of SudburySports.com.
