Last Wednesday morning a group of dignitaries gathered on a grassy piece of land on Île Bizard. Wielding tennis racquets in place of shovels, the group was there to perform a ceremonial sod-turning for the year-round community indoor tennis court facility that will be built on that site. “My council and I are pleased to have such a wonderful opportunity to have a tennis dome in the Borough,” Île Bizard-Sainte Geneviève Borough Mayor Doug Hurley said. “This offers our citizens the chance to play year-round in a modern facility on par with the latest facilities involving Tennis Canada, Rogers and Tennis Quebec. We are currently working through the details with Mr. Sousa which will eventually permit the construction of the tennis dome after several more hurdles are completed.”
This is part of the 1.2-million-dollar program sponsored by Rogers and Tennis Canada. “It was a pleasure to be in Île Bizard today for the second soil-turning event in the province of Quebec for our Year-Round Community Tennis Courts Program presented by Rogers,” said Eugène Lapierre, Special Advisor to the President, Tennis Canada. “Providing year-round access to tennis is at the heart of both Tennis Canada’s and Rogers’ objectives, and this new initiative is an additional step towards that goal.”
There are six projects confirmed for 2024, the most ambitious year for the program since it began in 2022. Each of the six municipalities receives $200,000 in seed money and when completed will bring the number of year-round tennis facilities to 14. Each existing club saw its winter court bookings and membership enrollment increase dramatically for the new indoor seasons, thanks to the collective additional 2,695 hours of court time per week that were made available to their communities.
By the end of 2024, the total number of year-round tennis courts created by the program will
reach over 60 that will be more than 35 percent of the program’s goal of 160. “We are proud to invest in the great work of Tennis Canada to make the sport of tennis more accessible all year round,” Edith Cloutier, Regional president of Rogers Quebec said. “Across different communities in Canada, and now in the district of Île-Bizard-Sainte-Genevieve, these indoor public courts will encourage young players and the next generation of high-level athletes to remain physically active.”
