BARBADOS is one sporting facility richer.
So too Cave Hill’s rebranded academy.
And the campus isn’t done churning them out just yet.
The country welcomed its second hockey facility to the landscape on Tuesday night when the Sports Academy Cave Hill officially declared the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) new AstroTurf open for the start of the Powerade Scrimfest Championship.
It’s the third major sports venue that UWI has unveiled in the last seven years, following the erection of the 3Ws Oval and the football field at the Lazaretto.
“Over the last six, seven years there’s been a definite shift in the way sports is perceived here at the University of the West Indies,” said the campus’ director of sports Roland Butcher.
“That has also coincided with the development of some first-class facilities.
“First and foremost, the cricket facility has been developed [and] since then, the football field has come on stream, but the stands are being built and at the moment the grandstand is three-quarters of the way finished.”
The turf’s completion couldn’t have come at a better time for the UWI hockey club, whose men’s side are preparing to play their debut season in the top flight.
BBC brand manager Clifford Gooding-Edghill declared the Scrimfest championship open, after Bertram and Norma Nicholls, parents of deceased UWI goalie Graydon Nicholls, were presented with a memento of a hockey mask.
The academy is in the process of laying an athletics track around the football field, while work on a multisport indoor facility at the same Lazaretto site is expected to start this year.