After nearly a year of anticipation, the grand re-opening of Max Clunie Field is scheduled for Thursday night and there are plenty of celebrations planned for the occasion.
Carlton vice principal Rylan Michalchuk says a lot of planning has gone into the event to make it a special night.
“We’re really excited to be able to host our first game out there so we wanted to kick off or plan an event to kind of celebrate the Grand Re-Opening of the field. There will be food sales, bouncy castles, games, face painting, music at that event and that will run till about 7. Starting at 6, we’re going to have the opening ceremonies with dignitaries from the city, school division, the board and the school with a ribbon ceremony and ceremonial kickoff. The teams will warm up after that ceremony and kickoff will be scheduled for 7.”
The completion of Max Clunie Field was originally scheduled for the start of September. Due to weather delays during the summer, the field and surrounding track were not completed until earlier this week. Michalchuk says it was a learning experience for the school with how many different processes were involved.
“The end of our season last year, they did start to dig up the field and took out the goal post so I guess the anticipation of the new field being ready to use kind of started almost a year ago. One of the learning experiences for our team in the school would be the uncontrollables with the construction site. There were a lot of different weather systems that had an impact on delaying some of the different stages of the new field.”
Both the Carlton Crusaders and St. Mary Marauders have not played a high school football game in Prince Albert yet this season due to the field being incomplete. The Car Guys Classic was relocated to Birch Hills last week. Prince Albert Minor Football has had to relocate Pee Wee and Bantam games as well.
Michalchuk says it hasn’t been an easy process but he gives a lot of credit to those organizations for finding alternative plans and especially to Carlton head coach Lindsay Strachan.
“I commend our players, our coaches and our school for being flexible and navigating through a lot of uncertainty of when the field would be exactly ready to go. Especially to the coaching staff that are with the football team and specifically the head coach Lindsay Strachan having the additional logistical changes that he had to navigate through and communicating that with players and and just still keeping the team focused on what the goal is. Our wins and losses record has reflected how well he’s navigated that ship with a 4-0 record.”
Carlton and Saskatoon Centennial will play the first game on the new Max Clunie Field at 7 p.m. on Thursday night.
sports@paherald.sk.ca
