Nova Scotia Aquatic Clubs Impact Statements

Atlantis Artistic Swimming Club | Nova Scotia Artistic Swimming ↺

Thank you for reaching out and taking on this initiative to save the Centennial pool.

Here is what I can tell you about how the closure of Centennial pool will affect the Atlantis Artistic Swimming Club, as well as the Nova Scotia Artistic Swimming (NSAS) organization.

Atlantis offers recreational and competitive programs at 4 pools throughout HRM: Centennial, Dalplex, Zatsman and CGC. Of these 4 pools over 50% of our programs/training is at Centennial pool, with the remaining 30% in Dalplex, and 10% in each of Zatsman & CGC. There are no other pools in the HRM that currently provide the availability or are of appropriate size for our club. As you may know, Artistic Swimming requires not only a specific pool size but also a specific depth to ensure that our athletes can train and compete safely. Centennial is one of only a few pools in the HRM that meets this requirement.

Atlantis currently offers the following programs at Centennial:

  • 5 recreational programs of various age and skill levels, 4 nights per week, for about 25-30 athletes.
  • 3 competitive programs of various age and skill levels, 3 nights per week, for about 20-25 athletes.

The Centennial pool has been instrumental in allowing Atlantis to continue to grow in size by offering more flexible schedules for our members. This growth has allowed us to keep our fees relatively stable and affordable. Without Centennial’s availability, the club would certainly lose membership, leading to higher costs for all families.

NSAS, our Provincial Sports Organization also runs programs (independently of Atlantis) out of Centennial. Currently, NSAS offers the following programs at Centennial:

  • Blind and Visually Impaired program, 1 afternoon per week, for 30 athletes.
  • “New Comers” program for new Canadian residents, 1 afternoon per week, for 50 athletes (and anticipating 80 registrants in 2024).

For NSAS’ programming, Centennial pool is crucial for several more specific reasons. The Blind and Visually Impaired program requires accessibility for its participants and Centennial is easily the most accessible pool in the HRM. Other facilities, due to their size or configuration are much more difficult to enter and exit without support. Similarly, Centennial’s central location in the HRM is beneficial to the new Canadian residents, many of whom depend on public transportation to get to and from the pool.

The loss of Centennial would be a great set back for these specialized programs and would affect NSAS’ ability to grow the sport, particularly among marginalized communities.

Another benefit of Centennial’s space is its seating capacity. In the past, Centennial has often hosted Provincial- as well as Maritime-level competitions. Other pools, particularly CGC, offer substantially less seating capacity and are ill-suited to host large competitions and events.

The loss of Centennial would jeopardize our city’s ability to host Artistic Swimming events. These events are crucial to growing the sport locally but are also helpful to the city by generating economic activity. Our city is already at a disadvantage for hosting larger, National events as we do not have the facilities to support them.

Please let me know if you need any further information or support from our organization.

Sincerely,
Andrea Cohen
Chair – Atlantis Artistic Swimming Club ↑

Chronos Masters Swimming ↺

Good morning,
Thank you for your note on saving the pool. I am the current president of Chronos Masters swimming. The loss of Centennial pool will most likely destroy the Masters program in the city. Chronos is the largest team in the area and provides Masters swimmers the caliber of coaching and practicing necessary to compete nationally.

During the temporary closure of the pool there was no other pool able to host our group.

The idea of selling the property where there is adequate land to build a world class competitive pool facility, is ludicrous. HRM has not shown any support for the swimming community let alone the community where the pool is currently located.

I am a recently retired member of HRM staff. I have some inside ideas on the true motive for selling this property.

I am 63 years old and have swam at this pool on a team since 1971. It is very functional and as you stated can expect another 10 years of life.

Imagine attaching a 10 lane pool to this and then renovating the current facility. Having this in the downtown will allow HRM to bid on very lucrative aquatic events. Anyway I can assist let me know.

Chuck Bezanson
Chronos Masters Swimming ↑

Dartmouth Crusaders ↺

October 13th, 2023 

To HRM City Council:

The Dartmouth Crusaders Swim Club vision is to build a better person through the sport of swimming. 

Every action we take, every instruction we give, every goal we set and every result we desire starts from a decision about WHY we do it. 

The Crusaders currently has approximately 150 swimmers ranging from our pre-competitive program to our Nationally ranked athletes. Our weekly training schedule involves dozens of hours spread primarily across three (3) facilities – The Zatzman Sportsplex, Centennial Pool and Cole Harbour Place. Centennial is host to our top 2 training squads (30 swimmers) on Thursday and Saturday mornings from 6-8 or 9AM. 

The Crusaders are very sensitive to pool closures having had our home pool (the Sportsplex) closed for almost a full 2 years for renovations. During that period of time, we struggled every week to find space for our athletes and our training schedule not only varied week to week but also involved facilities inadequate for our needs – eg. The Needham Pool and the Survival Systems Training facility. The lack of facilities and irregularity of the training scheduled resulted in a significant drop in membership (40%) as swim families looked at other clubs offering a more predictable schedule. 

Since the re-opening of the Sportsplex, numbers have grown rapidly, exceeding pre-closure figures and access to pool time is our Clubs biggest challenge as we continue to expand and require additional training space. The possibility of the Centennial pool closing without having an alternate facility available to absorb that loss is of great concern and would seriously limit our Clubs ability to meet the growing demand of Dartmouth, Cole Harbour and Halifax residents. 

The lack of even a plan to open a replacement for the Centennial Pool causes our Club a great deal of unease; HRM’s track record in developing aquatic facilities over time has been poor: 

  • Cole Harbour Place has inadequate deck space and so cannot host sanctioned swim meets, 
  • The Canada Games Aquatic Centre cannot host sanctioned swim meets because of an error in planning resulting in the pool being roughly 5 cms too short, 
  • The renovations of our home pool (the Zatzman Sportsplex) limited our ability to host swim meets because our viewing area was eliminated, and available deck space taken up by a hot tub and “splash” pad – this despite assurances throughout the planning and renovation phases that there would be a viewing area. 
  • The most recent pool constructed in HRM (The Halifax Commons Pool) is an outdoor facility, and, although we applaud HRM for its development, it is only available through the short, summer season. 

These examples have the impact of sowing doubt in the swimming community that aquatics is a priority for the city. 

Because of its low-impact nature, swimming is a sport that allows individuals of all sorts to engage in physical activity – from the very young, to very old, to persons with a disability. Removing access to a facility such as the Centennial Pool for an indeterminate period will impact not only competitive programs across HRM but also the lives of hundreds of people around HRM who rely on the pool to improve their physical and mental wellbeing – something that the pandemic has made us all much more aware of. 

It is for these reasons that the Crusaders firmly believe that any planning for the repurposing of the Centennial Pool and its land must involve having an adequate facility constructed and available to support the community before its closure. 

Respectfully submitted,
Jody Crowther, President
Dartmouth Crusaders Swim Club ↑

Halifax Trojan Athletic Club ↺

To Whom It May Concern:

First, some background information on our club. We are a competitive swim club of over 200 members that primarily swim out of the Dalplex and Centennial facilities. The club has a long storied history as the major player in the Atlantic Swim community and as well as being involved on the national stage as well.

The sport and this team can have a huge impact on people’s lives whether they swim at the highest level or transfer their skills to other aspects of their life. We are very proud of the impact we can have, and how many people we can have that impact on.

Currently, we are using Centennial every day of the week, bar Sundays, with our swimmers in the pool for over 100 hours worth of lane space at Centennial every week. We do not have a way of replacing that time if Centennial is to be closed. We know of the main pools in the area that could provide coverage, YMCA, Needham, Sackville, Zatzman, the Canada Games Centre. Yes, there is the pool at the commons, but we only overlap for less than a month with its opening. The YMCA in downtown does not book out to clubs or memberships and we have been turned away. Using Needham would help alleviate some of the stress of our younger/pre-competitive groups, but the facility is inadequate for training for the majority of our membership. Sackville and Zatzman are both at capacity due to the Sackville and Dartmouth teams training out of those pools respectively. Canada Games is at capacity as said by their Ward Councillor. A closure to Centennial would impact our ability to operate at or near the size we have for decades. Our biggest worry would be in losing membership and our ability to gain it back. When COVID hit, as pools were closed for a very long time, many teams found themselves hit very hard and membership took time to bounce back as many athletes chose to move to sports that were running. With a closure and drop to membership, we would be worried about our ability to retain those swimmers and maintain a healthy population. Last year, we had a moment where Dal had a scheduled closure and Centennial had an unexpected closure simultaneously. When this occurred we had a mad scramble to contact pools to gain lane space to keep our membership in the water. We were forced to cancel most of our practices, swim out a Long Lake and send swimmers to join the practices of other teams. We could not get any lane space during the after school hours of 4-8pm in any pool in the HRM. I only had response and lane space from Bridgewater, Acadia University, and Truro. This highlighted to us, the sheer lack of both pools and space within the HRM.

We are very happy to see the city plans to build a new 50m pool with additional side tank and to refurbish the Needham facility. However, we are concerned that closing Centennial Pool would be losing a publicly owned 50m pool in the heart of the city at a time when the population is growing and the demand for more aquatic facilities is growing. What would devastate our club would be if Centennial Pool and a refurbished Needham were both closed at the same time.

I would also like to make note of another user group that I feel like would be affected more so than any other, Cygnus Diving. They operate out of Centennial and Centennial does have a seemingly very good facility for diving between its platforms, towers, and land space. With Dal not opening its facility for diving use, their team would be completely without a facility.

We support the Save Centennial Pool Committee’s efforts in working with the City Council in order to find alternatives or solutions to the need of a Top-Class facility that benefits both the city, region, and Atlantic provinces.

— Halifax Trojan Aquatic Club ↑

Halifax Wavecutters Aquatic Club ↺

  The Halifax Wavecutters Aquatic club runs three different programs:

  • Competitive Swimming
  • Stroke improvement/Maintenance for Summer league swimmers
  • Water polo for youth, and this program is the only one in the Province.

We went through the period of not using Centennial Pool during the two and a half years of this pool repairing. We were able to maintain our Competitive Swim team, but other activities had to be stopped due to no availability of pool space elsewhere. We believe that if  Centennial pool will be closed again, we would have to shut down the club that has existed since 2005 and has had huge achievements in Competitive Swimming (still possessing 11 provincial records) and Water Polo being the core of competitive stream in this sport.

The demolishing of Centennial pool will barely impact most of clubs using that pool (those have other “Home” venues) but for our club and Cygnus this closure will be critical.

I am also very pessimistic about you being successful in your approach. I remember how many letters and requirements had been sent to different authorities about Canada Games Centre asking them to build a 50m pool instead of what they actually built and all that have been  ignored. I have a feeling that they will do the same thing now – ignore.

Regards,
Nickolay Shulga
President of Halifax Wavecutters Aquatic Club ↑

Sackville Waves Aquatic Team ↺

October 15, 2023

Dear Councilor Smith,

I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the potential closure and demolition of Centennial Pool and the significant impact it would have on the Sackville Waves Aquatic Team’s ability to train and compete. Our swimmers that use the facility range in age from 6-18years old.

The pool has been an invaluable resource for our club, as our swimmers rely on its 50m length for training purposes and hosting of swim meets. We host approximately 4 Nova Tech Swim meets a year at Centennial, because we are unable to host meets at our home pool at Sackville Sports Stadium because it is not designed for competition. Sackville pool has no Spectator area, not enough diving blocks and is only a 25m pool.

It is Important for people outside the swimming community to understand that swimmers need official long distance swim times (times that you achieve in 50m pool) to qualify for provincial, national, and international swim meets. Thus, if Centennial pool being one of only two 50m pools in Nova Scotia closed this would hurt our athletes’ development and the sport of swimming in Nova Scotia because our athletes will have limited opportunities to use a facility to qualify or train for events.

As mentioned before Centennial Pool is one of two 50m pools in all of Nova Scotia. If it closed it would be concerning that the only other 50m pool in Nova Scotia is the Dalplex. Dalplex would not have any available times for SWAT to practice or host any swim meets. This would further limit SWAT’s access to a suitable training and competition facility, potentially hindering swimmers’ development, and ability to compete at all levels.

The closure of Centennial Pool would indeed have a significant impact on the Nova Scotia Swimming Community as a whole. It would limit access to a 50m pool, affecting not only our club but also other swimmers and teams in the region who rely on the facility for training and competitions. The loss of such a valuable resource would be detrimental to the development and growth of the swimming community in HRM and Nova Scotia.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Kershaw
Vice-President of Sackville Waves Aquatic Team (SWAT) ↑