Hello Bluestreaks Club Members,
In light of the recent announcement about a new stadium located on the University of Calgary campus, where Hawkings Field is located in the potential proposed footprint, please read the announcement below from Sport Calgary.
Sport Calgary has launched Keep Calgary Playing, an information and advocacy campaign calling for increased investment in Calgary’s sport and recreation infrastructure through the City’s upcoming 2027–2030 budget. We need you to help make that call impossible to ignore.
This November, Council will shape Calgary’s next four years of investment. We need to get loud about funding GamePLAN at the Council-adopted Making Waves service level to renew aging facilities, add capacity, and create more places to play. GamePLAN is the City’s long-term plan for public recreation.
Here is what you can do:
- Add your name to the campaign pledge page. Then ask others to.
- Rally your community. Send the campaign directly to participants, families, coaches, volunteers, staff, and your network. Ask them to participate.
- Make it visible. Use the toolkit’s graphics, captions, newsletter content, and email templates. Keep sharing through November.
- Make the ask. Contact your Councillor to advocate for increased investment in sport and recreation infrastructure – ask for funding GamePLAN at the Council-adopted Making Waves service level through the 2027–2030 budget.
- Make it personal. How do you experience these spaces? Who are you turning away? What programs cannot grow? What would more space mean?
The window to influence these decisions is now. The proposed budget is scheduled for release November 10, when registration opens to speak during budget public submissions. Public submissions and Council deliberations begin November 23, with approval expected in late November. Start today and keep our voices heard through the final decisions.
The strength of this campaign depends on how many people participate. We need you to rally your community and your network – make places to play a priority that Council cannot overlook. We have heard from you. You see the pressures every day: full programs, closed registrations, limited facility time, people you cannot accommodate, programs you cannot offer, and opportunities for children, athletes, and Calgarians to grow and develop, move and connect, held back by a lack of time and space.
Some of the campaign data available include Sport Calgary’s recent community sport research, conducted with Strategic Healthy Impacts, which documented 57,448+ waitlisted registrations and instances of unmet demand. More than 90 per cent of organizations surveyed identified facility deficits as their number one barrier to growth, and more than 80 per cent were operating at or near capacity.
The City’s 2025 Recreation and Sport Participation and Demand Study found that 52 per cent of Calgary households had experienced programs being too full or facilities being too crowded, the most frequently identified barrier to participation.
Waitlists are warnings. The cost of inaction is inaccessibility. Sport and recreation infrastructure is essential infrastructure.
Calgary has grown by nearly 300,000 people since 2019. A growing city needs places to play. If you believe in the power of sport, the power of movement and everyone’s right to participate, now is the time to show it.
Add your name. Get the toolkit. Keep Calgary Playing.
Before you close this message, share it with your community. Put the campaign in your newsletter, team communication, group chat and social posts. Ask people directly to act.
Bring your community. Multiply your voice. Together, let’s Keep Calgary Playing.