Media Releases >  Media Releases Archive  > Whitecaps invest $3 million to build national training centre at SFU

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Simon Fraser University
Media and public relations
604.291.3210

Contact:
Cathy Daminato, v-p, university advancement, 604.291.5302
Steve Frost, athletics media office, 604.291.4057

The Whitecaps Football Club will invest $3 million in Simon Fraser University to build the Whitecaps National Training Centre at SFU, university President Michael Stevenson announced today. Through the new partnership a permanent training centre will be developed at SFU’s Burnaby Mountain campus that will become the new home for the professional sports franchise and the Canadian national soccer teams. The facility will also be available for year-round use to SFU students, student-athletes and the surrounding community.

The investment by the Whitecaps is one of the largest private investments in SFU history. Plans call for the development of two lit turf fields and a field house for use by the Whitecaps men’s and women’s professional soccer teams and its youth teams. The Canadian Soccer Association also announced today that its men’s, women’s and youth national teams will train at SFU.

The training centre will incorporate two of SFU’s existing fields on the west side of the Terry Fox track and field. A new site for a private clubhouse is still being considered.

"This is a historic day for SFU because a privately owned professional sports franchise and one of Canada’s leading universities have developed a partnership that will create a legacy of excellence," said Stevenson. "With the generosity of the Whitecaps investment and our dynamic new relationship with the organization and the Canadian Soccer Association, Simon Fraser University students, student-athletes and the surrounding community will benefit from these lit turf fields that will more than double our current available field use."

"The purpose of this training centre is to provide the Whitecaps FC and Soccer Canada with a permanent, year-round training facility," said Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot. "As an organization our objective has consistently been to develop a strong club structure and this facility provides the foundation to serve that goal. We believe that the centre will also provide a positive training atmosphere for Canadian soccer and establish Vancouver as the home of our national teams."

The move today by the CSA to join the Whitecaps at SFU brings to five the number of national programs that will train at the university, including Canada’s national men’s and women’s soccer teams, the Canadian Olympic women’s softball team and the Canadian men’s and women’s wrestling programs.
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Backgrounder
Whitecaps/SFU announcement


The Whitecaps and CSA will become a cornerstone of the changing face of Simon Fraser University that will see the immediate development and construction of the two new lit turf fields scheduled to be completed in October 2004. The construction of an $11 million fitness centre and gymnasium complex will begin this summer and completed by 2005. The 2010 Olympic Organizing committee has committed $60 million to build an Olympic Oval at SFU adjacent to the two new lit turf fields.

"This generous investment from our friends at the Whitecaps will help us to realize our dream of making Simon Fraser University the centre of sports and sports science in this country," said SFU Director of Recreation and Athletics Wilf Wedmann. As part of the SFU Olympic Oval Legacy vision the university is planning to develop a sports science institute and sports medicine centre for the benefit of Canadian athletes.

Simon Fraser's current recreational and athletic facilities were completed in 1976 with the construction of Chancellor Gymnasium when the university's full-time enrollment was 6,000 students. There have not been any new recreation facilities constructed since then while SFU’s population has grown to 23,000 full- and part-time students and the facilities operate at full capacity.

When the two lit turf fields are completed in October 2004, the SFU men’s and women’s soccer programs will have the capability of playing all of their home games on the Burnaby Mountain campus with a seating capacity of 300. The SFU men’s and women’s soccer teams compete against 250 schools in the United States-based National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The men’s team has won national titles three times and the women’s team has been crowned champions twice.

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Contact:
Cathy Daminato, v-p, university advancement, 604.291.5302
Steve Frost, athletics media office, 604.291.4057
Marianne Meadahl/Carol Thorbes, media/pr, 604.201.3210