With more players registered than ever before, Calgary’s minor soccer officials say there is an urgent need for more indoor fields
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With more players registered than ever before, Calgary’s minor soccer officials say there is an urgent need for more indoor playing facilities to keep the sport thriving during the winter months.
On the eve of the 2024-25 indoor season, the Calgary Minor Soccer Association (CMSA) said the association has seen player registrations increase 12 per cent annually over the past three years. Over 1,000 teams are registered to play this indoor season, according to the CMSA, whose schedulers are now tasked with co-ordinating more than 6,400 youth soccer games this winter.
And as more young Calgarians spend the cold months strapping on a pair of cleats and shin pads, the CMSA’s executive director Carlo Bruneau said there is a growing demand for city soccer facilities to host those games.
“The great thing is that we’re growing. The challenge is we’re running out of capacity to deliver the game,” he said.
Bruneau said Calgary’s population boom is a significant driver, particularly considering many of the city’s newcomers have migrated from countries where soccer is popular.
The sport’s relative affordability and accessibility are other reasons Bruneau cited for its growing popularity, as well as the recent successes of the men’s and women’s national teams, and the fact Canada will co-host the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
He also brought up the growing number of avenues to pursue the sport competitively in Calgary, thanks to the recent arrival of the city’s professional men’s team, Cavalry FC, as well as the future women’s pro side, the Calgary Wild, who will debut in 2025.
“Having that infrastructure at the local level has definitely increased the popularity and the enthusiasm in the sport,” Bruneau said. “I’d say kids are staying in the sport because there’s actually a pathway for them to realize the dream of being a professional soccer athlete.”
But while Calgary has no shortage of outdoor soccer fields, Bruneau said there are only a handful of indoor facilities to host games during the winter.
The only indoor facilities that host CMSA-sanctioned games and tournaments are the Calgary Soccer Centre and Macron Performance Centre in the southeast; the Shane Homes West Soccer Dome and Shouldice Seasonal Dome in the northwest; and Genesis Centre in the northeast.
“We’re excited to have that facility come online,” he said. “But that facility isn’t going to alleviate our capacity issue alone.”
Considering the high cost to build and operate indoor sport facilities, Bruneau said government support is pivotal. He called on the city and other orders of government to invest more in indoor soccer facilities, which he argued provide a return on investment by increasing the city’s capacity to host games and tournaments.
“We’ll definitely need government support to be able to build these types of facilities,” he said. “If we didn’t, there’d be a dozen of these around the city.”
‘We’re slammed’
While many of Calgary’s local soccer clubs have their own indoor training facilities, one local soccer coach said even those spaces are feeling the crunch these days.
Shaun Lowther, the director of soccer operations for the Calgary Southwest United Soccer Club, said the club’s indoor facility in the Foothills Industrial Park is oversubscribed during the indoor season.
“We’re slammed. We have no indoor space free right now,” he said. We’re scrambling to get enough space that we can train all our teams correctly. Our numbers have gone through the roof, much like most clubs in Calgary.”
That growth in demand has been in lockstep with the city’s recovery from the pandemic, according to Lowther, who noted that most clubs in Calgary are experiencing the same phenomenon.