Quote:
Originally Posted by beyeas
Also, with respect to the comment of their not being a track... that is apparently something that is still on the table. The committee is under pressure to make this as multi-user as possible. I had strongly voiced my opinion that night to the committee that priority needed to go to maximizing the experience for the sports that were most likely to use the facility and that were most likely to be future revenue generators (i.e. soccer and CFL). If you make something that accommodates everyone, you will just end up with it also being a poor design for all uses, as usually happens when you have trade-offs.
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I have been thinking about beyeas' comment. I agree with what beyeas stated, however it made me wonder how well a track would fit in a Halifax stadium. A stadium and track would help Halifax to get international events that it couldn't get in the past. I knew that the HRM was bidding on the 2014 North American Indigenous Games (unfortunately it was awarded to Regina instead -
http://www.leaderpost.com/sports/Regina+...ican+Indigenous+Games/4793675/story.html). But if Halifax goes ahead and builds a stadium with a track then maybe it will have a better chance of getting events such as the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
I spent a bit of time researching international track dimensions. I found that 400m tracks can vary somewhat in layout to fit multipurpose stadiums -
IAAF Technical Manual - refer to page 13/140 of the pdf file.
For FIFA International soccer matches, the field has to be 68m wide by 105m long with 8.5m along each sideline and 10m behind each goal line (85m x 125m in total) - page 66/420 of this online book -
http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/developing/stadiumbook2011/index.html (it takes several seconds to load, and sometimes it doesn't work, it seems as though the FIFA site is down quite often)
A Canadian football field is in total 450 feet long by 195 feet wide (including the 20 yard endzones) -
http://www.sportsknowhow.com/football/field-dimensions/canadian-cfl-football-field-dimensions.html
So I drew the Canadian football field, FIFA soccer field and one suggested layout for a 400m track in SketchUp (below). The sideline seats are only about 12 - 13 feet further from the field than they would be for the required minimum FIFA soccer field dimensions (the FIFA soccer field including the sideline allowance is drawn as a thick black line). The track field layout that I used was the one in figure 1.2.3d on page 15/140 of this document -
http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/Competit...edfile_IAAF_TF_Manual2008_web-1_4481.pdf. If the track were a few inches lower than the main soccer and football field then when not in use it could be covered with any suitable artificial turf since it is not part of the actual playing surface -
edited (by me) a 5 meter border outside the foul lines must be the same turf as the playing field (it will have to be decided by the HRM whether the main playing field will be artificial turf or natural grass - if artificial turf then very few types qualify for FIFA international soccer matches -
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afdeveloping/pitchequip/fqc_football_turf_folder_342.pdf, BMO Field just reverted back to natural grass)
I also downloaded a 3D model from the Google 3D Warehouse of the Missouri State Robert Plaster Stadium grandstand (
drawn by username "Missouri State") and slightly modified it so that the large grandstand is on both sides off the field to represent a 25,000 seat stadium. For an open ended stadium it would still be quite compact and for large events such as the Grey Cup, large temporary stands could be put in the endzones over the athletic track section.
Light Green is the FIFA soccer field, the dark black line is the FIFA soccer foul territory allowance (8.5m on each sideline and 10m behind each goal-line)