Duane Hicks
A group of local volunteers is trying to get new tennis courts built in Fort Frances.
Committee chair Rick Wiedenhoeft asked town council Monday night to keep the $112,000 currently earmarked for tennis courts in this year’s municipal budget.
The former councillor said ever since the new library was built, and the existing tennis courts became a parking lot, he has submitted a budget request to fund new ones each year.
“However, given that the last eight years have been some of the toughest economical and financial challenges that this town has ever seen, it was to no one’s surprise that the funding for the new tennis courts was an early scratch from the budget process,” Wiedenhoeft noted.
“In retrospect, I feel that I probably, as a councillor, should have fought harder to see this through while I was on council, but they were difficult times and other things had to prevail,” he remarked.
Wiedenhoeft said tennis has a history going back well over 50 years here, adding he and many others started playing as teenagers.
“The courts were very crowded; often so crowded they had to install an ‘on-deck’ tube,” he recalled, referring to a system of putting your tennis ball in a tube to wait your turn to get on the court.
When your ball came out the bottom of the tube, it was your turn to get on one of the four courts.
“Often, you had to wait for an hour to an hour-and-a-half before your ball came down through the chute,” said Wiedenhoeft.
“The tennis courts were very well-used in that time when I was growing up.”
When Wiedenhoeft returned to Fort Frances to teach phys. ed. in 1981, the classes often went to the courts in the fall.
The courts continued to be very well-used—so much so that the school had to book class time so as to not interrupt the regular users.
“However, as the courts fell into disrepair and became virtually an injury hazard, usage dropped off, and there was a move to build new tennis courts that started at that time,” noted Wiedenhoeft.
But the new library was built and put an end to that.
Fast forward to present day and the new tennis court committee, which includes many dedicated tennis enthusiasts such as Bob Tkachyk and Al Christiansen, is looking to the town to “do the right thing and help us fund the building of new tennis courts for our community.”
Wiedenhoeft said the group already has gone through the proper channels and received permission from the St. Francis Sportsfield Advisory Committee to build new courts on that property—precisely where they were supposed to be placed in the original plans for that sportsfield.
He added the group has letters of support, in principle, from the Town of Fort Frances, as well as the public and separate school boards.
The tennis court committee is pursuing a Trillium grant, a Moffat Family Fund grant, and any other grants that may apply to building new tennis courts here.
“We are approaching this as a multi-use facility but mainly for tennis,” noted Wiedenhoeft.
The committee also is seeking donations and help from Tennis Canada, as well as the “always generous” citizens of Fort Frances, he added.
Wiedenhoeft said he’s aware of the challenges the town faces at this time, but the replacement of the tennis courts is “long, long, long overdue.”
He clarified the group does not expect the town to fund all of the project.
“The amount in the budget is $112,000,” Wiedenhoeft said. “That will virtually pay for one court.
“We are not going to ask the town to cover the entire cost.
“[But] we are not going to cheap it out, either,” he stressed. “We want to put in very good courts that are going to last for a long time.
“So we will have to do . . . a lot of fundraising, as well, because we want to build at least two courts—if we could, ideally four, but that would require a lot of money.”
Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig said he was pleased to see the tennis court committee has come to the town with solutions and “not just parking a need at the door of the town.”
Likewise, the committee is a group of people who are “willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.”
McCaig said the town hasn’t had tennis courts in years. And when the town built the new library, perhaps council should have thought more about where to put new ones.
“It’s a fairly important recreational asset,” he noted, adding that if Fort Frances wants to be a full-service community and attract professionals such as doctors, tennis courts are part of the equation.
He added a town the size of Fort Frances should have at least two tennis courts, noting area municipalities such as Nestor Falls has one.
“It’s been a real deficiency in our portfolio of recreational assets,” said McCaig, noting administration is committed to working with the group and can help it with writing grant applications.
Coun. Ken Perry suggested a community fundraising campaign and raising most of the money from the public, adding he could see them raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.
That, with the help of the town and other funding sources, would put them over the top.
“It’s not impossible,” remarked Coun. Perry. “I hope we can do it.”
Wiedenhoeft said the group is aiming to be playing tennis on new courts next year.
