Larry Tougas says the infrastructure decisions the city makes could help propel the community into the upper echelon of the sport tourism world in Canada.
Tougas, who is the Sport Tourism Coordinator for the city of North Bay, spoke about the issue during a Monday press event at Memorial Gardens.
The city is hoping to make a decision soon as to where a new ice rink will be built within the city.
“Infrastructure is going to be something that if you want to make the next step and compete with the bigger communities like Kingston is going crazy right now with sport tourism and they are hosting the men’s Brier next year,” said Tougas.
“They have infrastructure in place that allows them to be able to do that. That is something that we strongly have to consider in the future is yes there is going to be a rink decision made but anything like that will be viable for us to make the next step in Sport Tourism.”
Tougas says North Bay is getting a reputation around the province as a great host community.
“OFSAA has been a template as we have hosted 23 OFSAA’s in four years and that is a pretty good statistic, we have three more happening and one happening right now, so I think that has been the template, low hanging fruit type, but I don’t like to use that term too much,” he stated.
“Our capacity has allowed us to do it. OFSAA is really good because is what happens is they have to come, they have no choice. If they are in Kenora, everyone has to go to Kenora, so we have taken that opportunity and I think a lot of the province has taken notice that we are called the OFSAA capital of Ontario because we have hosted so many.”
But to get bigger events - especially those relating to ice arenas - North Bay will need that new facility. While the Ringette tournament brought in at least 1000 athletes into the area, a lack of facilities did force organizers to host games almost an hour away in places like South River and Sundridge.
“This ringette event is probably going to be in the neighbourhood of $1.2 to $1.5 million,” Tougas estimates the event’s economic impact.
“Again, in order to play with the big boys you have to enhance your accommodations, and you are going to have to enhance your infrastructure.”
While Tougas is not a decision maker, he hopes council makes the right one.
“We just sit back and see what is going to transpire and naturally if we could make the next step with infrastructure whether it is rinks or whatever else they decide to build we could possibly be very very successful in hosting more events in the future,” he said.
