Hockey arena a unique host to world short-course swim championships

The Spitfires are on an extended 13-game road trip to accommodate the swim championships, which run through Sunday.

The pool — 26 metres wide and 25 metres long — shines under dramatic theatre lighting you’d more likely see at a boxing match. The glimmering lights off the rippling water dance on the building’s metal ceiling.

At first glance, it appears to sit below ground, but the pool’s decking is laid over the fifth row of arena seats.

Schott said she was pleased to see the “colour of the pool was blue. This was good” — a jab at the Rio Olympics, where one of the pools surprisingly turned green virtually overnight.

The Windsor construction team placed both a lucky loonie and a penny under the pool lining. A giant yellow Maple Leaf adorns one end of decking.

Swimmers relax pre-race in Adirondack chairs and music blares over the speakers between races. Well-muscled swimmers walk the halls in their country’s team jackets past walls bearing hockey memorabilia.

“It’s incredible, definitely looks different from the last time I was here for a hockey game,” said Windsor swimmer Kylie Masse, a bronze medallist in Rio. “It’s super cool that this is even possible, and I’m excited for the rest of the week.

“I kind of (wondered how it would turn out),” Masse added. “But I had faith. I knew it was going to look good.”

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told the crowd at the event’s opening ceremonies that it doesn’t get “any more Canadian” than having a world swim championships “in the home that hockey built.”

Construction began on Nov. 11 and was completed Friday morning. It took 20 hours and 1.4 million litres of water to fill the modular pool, made by Italy-based Myrtha Pools.

“Two metres deep, it bolts together, the gutter system comes with it. Attach a filter system to it, and piping, and away you go,” said Don Sadler, the City of Windsor’s project leader.

The arena already uses a lot of water, Sadler said, and so they were able to tap into the building’s six-inch water main to fill the pool.

“And the water was crystal clear,” he said. “There were no impediments in it at all, because our main and our servers in here being well-used had no time for any sediments to develop. And it was clear, it looked as good when we put it in as it does right now.

“Everybody was amazed how wonderful Windsor water is.”

The WFCU Centre, which seats 6,500 for Spitfires games, was chosen as the venue because the city’s other swim complex only seats between 900 to 1,200 fans.

Sadler said they’re not the first to put a pool in a hockey arena, which is also home to the Windsor Express of the National Basketball League.

After the world’s best swimmers head home, the ice will go back in on Dec. 20 and then there is a concert, a basketball game, and a hockey game on three consecutive nights.

Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Hockey arena a unique host to world short-course swim championships

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