The Owen Sound cricket team is looking to establish proper grounds for its team to play on.
Jay Parmer from the team gave gave a delegation to the Community Services Committee last week proposing possible grounds at the Kiwanis soccer fields.
“Cricket is one of the fastest growing sport in Canada, second to soccer,” says Parmer.
He says the number of players has grown tremendously to over 100 in Owen Sound.
“There is so much demand that we always hunt down for a place to play. We even use tennis courts in Harrison Park when no one is around to play,” says Parmer. “So we are looking for a place where we can probably go every evening or when the players are available so we can go and play.”
A cricket field is comprised of a round or oval area of play with a rectangular area in the middle, known as the pitch, which can either be concrete or grass.
Parmer says a concrete pitch would come to about $7,000 to $8,000 and would not require much maintenance.
He adds by having a cricket field, they will be able to host tournaments and other teams in the region can use the field, generating revenue for local businesses.
City staff will work with the team to come up with a temporary solution, including looking at pitch options as well as if there is field in the city which can be rented for cricket games.
The Community Services Committee also says they could reach out to the Bluewater District School Board for the team to use any space at local schools.
This comes after Mayor Ian Boddy had previously requested staff include the cost for investing in a space for cricket in the upcoming capital budget.
Coun. Travis Dodd says, “Capital budgets have already been approved for 2025, that is why the mayor would have requested in our last budget meeting on Monday to have that play come forward for 2026. That is when we will be saying if there is a capital cost to build what you are looking to build and we have got to find the right facility for that and there is a cost to that, that isn’t being budgeted right now in 2025.”
