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May 14,2006 - May 21,2006 |
A new field in Downsview for Azzurri
By year's end the team will also have the Sandy Ricciuto Sport Centre
By Alan Patarga
Originally Published: 2006-04-23
Week after week, the project for the Sandy Ricciuto-Toronto Azzurri Sport Centre continues to take shape.
The facility near the Keele Reservoir - claim promoters - should see the light by the end of 2006. While soccer will be its main purpose, it will not be the only one.
Last week, all the protagonists of this nice sports adventure got together around a table for clarifying everybody's tasks and set a tight timetable for the project. The meeting was held in the offices of Local 506, steps from Downsview Park, the location that many had unsuccessfully proposed for the new city stadium.
The 'master of ceremonies' was Gus Mandarino, project director of the Toronto Azzurri Sport Centre, who remarked, "This project has been going on for years, and we are now in a decisive phase. What we are doing is not just creating a new sports facility, but also offer a service to the whole community."
Bob Iarusci, the mythical Cosmos sweeper (he played with Pelé, Chinaglia and Beckenbauer) of the Seventies who now chairs Toronto Azzurri, recalled old times in order to explain the reasons behind this ambitious project. "We were born in 1998," he said, "but our story is rooted in an older Italian-Canadian soccer tradition, such as Gino Ventresca's Toronto Italia, from the Sixties. A few years ago we decided to put those traditions to good use and do something for our community, creating our club, which is now - I can say that with confidence - one of the best in Canada. We are now working at a great project that will give us a new home at Keele & Steeles [Ed. Note: in the SE corner] and give a meeting point to many youths who would have nowhere else to go to for satisfying their sports aspirations."
The field is already available. The good news came from city councillor Peter Li Preti, who has been lobbying for an agreement between the City and Toronto Azzurri. "Now the field - a first rate field - is available to the Toronto Azzurri Soccer Club," he explained. "It still lacks the infrastructures: a clubhouse, locker rooms and other facilities that would constitute the Sandy Ricciuto Sport Centre. Azzurri need a home, and we are working hard to this end: I believe that, if our efforts will have the desired effects, we shall be able to open the new centre by the end of this year, without further delay. For sure, we can rely on the fundamental contribution of an extraordinary builder like Sandy Ricciuto [Ed. Note: owner of Carwell Construction] and many more people, but I think that, come fundraising time, we could turn to associations working against crime, or even to the Trillium Foundation: if the needed funds will be fast in coming, excavations might begin within a couple of months."
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