STELLARTON – Winter tennis at the William M. Sobey Indoor Sports Complex in Stellarton will resume on Jan. 9.
The sessions are held each Tuesday (from 10 a.m. until noon) and Thursdays from 1-3 p.m.
Beginning Jan. 12, Friday night tennis will take place from 8-9:30 p.m.
“I think they’ll get more people when they have it in the evenings,” said Mary MacDonald, who is one of the regulars who show up at the complex.
“That’ll be great for the people who work days and can’t play in the mornings.”
MacDonald, who began playing about 30 years ago, said she and a handful of other players in Pictou County used to get their wintertime tennis fix by traveling over to Truro to play at the Cougar Dome.
“Most of us are retirees and it’s nice now, that we can just over to Stellarton,” she said.
“And they have set times, so we can just show up and play. Last year, we had four courts going.”
Sports complex manager Gary Matheson said that on most days, between 12-16 people have showed up to play, paying $12 per person for two hours of court time.
“The first eight weeks went well,” he said of the indoor tennis program, which started in late autumn and into early winter.
The facility has enough room for four courts to be set up, when the demand is there.
“So far, we’ve been setting up the three courts – there hasn’t really been enough people to set up the fourth one,” Matheson added.
The Town of New Glasgow received a one-time grant to organize the tennis program a year ago, and while funds were not acquired to continue the program this year, Geralyn MacDonald, director of community development with the Town, said the program was very well received.
“It was very successful – a lot of people took advantage of it.”
MacDonald said now that the busy holiday season is behind us, a group of regulars who travel from Antigonish are expected to start trickling in for the winter program.
