Rifles field damaged by vandal
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2019 (2253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The Winnipeg Rifles are crying foul after their practice field was ripped up Tuesday night by a trespassing vehicle.
The Canadian Junior Football League team is only one game into the 2019 season and head coach Geordie Wilson was scrambling Wednesday to get the huge divots in the field at Maple Grove Park filled in.
If it’s not ready in time, the players will need to find somewhere else to practice. (The Rifles travel to Calgary to play the Colts on Sunday; Winnipeg plays host to the Regina Thunder on Aug. 31.)
Wilson discovered the damage when he showed up early Wednesday to cut the grass. Someone drove through a small fence on the side and left several circles of tire tracks, damaging the centre of the field doing doughnuts.
“I was between anger, sadness, disappointment, hatred — I was just so angry,” the coach said. “It just drives me crazy to think why… It’s just senseless vandalism.”
Last year, the Rifles and the St. Vital Mustangs Football Club put in $20,000 to fix up the field, levelling it and seeding, watering it themselves.
“You spend all that time, you’re cutting the grass, and then some idiot comes and does something like this,” Wilson said. “It’s disheartening.”
The total annual budget for the CJFL team, which is scheduled to play three of four 2019 home games at Maple Grove Park (with one at IG Field), is $350,000. So fixing the practice field again will be a big financial hit for the team, the coach said.
“We’ve got to scratch and scrimp and save so we can make this (program) work,” he said. “Do you think this is funny? It’s not funny at all.”
In the short term, the Rifles were hoping City of Winnipeg crews would arrive Wednesday night to level the playing surface with topsoil.
“So we can use it as a practice field tonight, which won’t be great — but it will be better than nothing, because we have no other options,” Wilson said.
“Our coaches and our players invest countless hours, and now we can’t even run a proper practice because our field is screwed. It gives our opposition a competitive advantage… I’m just so frustrated and disappointed,” he said.
Wilson is asking anyone who saw something Tuesday night to contact him. He plans to make a police report and would love to identify the perpetrator and get them out shovelling soil to re-level the field.
The CJFL is an 18-team amateur league for players ages 18 to 22.
tvanderhart@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @tessavanderhart
