Scott Radley: Redeemer soccer bubble flattened by the storm

Redeemer University's soccer bubble is flat today, thanks to Monday's massive snowfall.

The school's vice-president of administration and finance was at home early in the day when he got a call telling him the bubble had partly deflated thanks to the weight of the snow.

That's OK, an optimistic Aaron Williams thought. It'll be fine.

Late (in the) afternoon when I heard it was on the ground, I was deflated," he says.

When he says on the ground," he means it. On Monday evening, it was truly flat. Possibly altering the Ancaster Meadowlands horizon for the first time since the $4.8-million facility went up in 2011.

Williams has only been on the job for a few months so he's not sure if this has ever happened before.

He says he's surprised it collapsed since the two things that were supposed to prevent that - keeping the inside heated and clearing snow from around the base so it wouldn't pile up - were both done.

Williams isn't sure yet if the material is damaged. A company that specializes in these things is coming to take a look on Tuesday. Ideally, all that's required is a reinflating.

The hope is that it'll be back up and ready to go again by Jan. 27 when the temporary provincial halt on indoor sports is due to end. Which is really the one positive in this.

This is typically peak soccer dome time, but because of those governmental COVID restrictions, there were no bookings for the next few days.

That's the silver lining," he says.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com