Too hot for soccer! Or more specfically, too hot for soccer on artificial turf in Toronto. Environment Canada issued heat warnings for southern Ontario and Quebec today. Temperatures are expected to rise to 40 C breaking previously held records from 1944.
But some soccer coaches in Toronto say this summer has already amazed them. John Hyland is the technical director with the North Toronto Soccer League. He describes this summer as “unreal”.
In an interview with CBC News, Hyland described the restrictions for playing on an artificial pitch. “We’re just not able to use it during the day, because it’s just too hot,” he said. “We started using everything after 6 o’clock in the hope that it’s cooled down a bit.”
“We had to water the turf so it could cool down”
Hermann Kingue coaches girls at a soccer camp. He has evidence of what can happen in this heat, with the artificial turf melting the bottom of his shoes.
“I have no balance when I’m coaching or when I’m playing. All this black part is gone,” he said, pointing to a chunk of black sole from his shoe that has disappeared.
Kingue sent photos of the damaged shoes to the manufacturer and got a reply guaranteeing a new pair or a fix of the old pair. However, he hasn’t heard anything further.
John Hyland said the synthetic fields should be watered, to keep the reduce temperature of the turf.
“When I volunteered with the Pan Am Games, that was one of the things we had to do,” he said. “At Varsity Stadium, we had to water the turf so it could cool down. That was somewhere else we saw that during the practices, if the turf wasn’t watered, players were having issues with their shoes.”
Toronto Public Health investigated the health impact of artificial turf fields and found they’re hotter than asphalt in the sun.
A researcher measured one field at a scorching 95 C.
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