Sports teams, city officials cross their fingers for quick repairs to Summerside's damaged dome

Island athletes and Summerside officials are hoping the P.E.I. city's sports dome can reopen sooner rather than later after a technical mishap last week caused some damage and forced the facility's shutdown.

"I can't stress [enough] the importance of the dome to us, and we look forward to going back," said Mary Jane Webster, president of the P.E.I. Rugby Union. "We get the ability to really provide game-like situations for our athletes, and we can do full contact, which is a huge benefit for us." 

The $5-million dome over a huge indoor turf field opened in time for the 2023 Canada Winter Games, which were hosted by the province. Warm air is continuously pumped into the dome to keep its roof inflated, allowing teams to use the facility year-round. 

But about two weeks ago, the dome and other large electricity users in the western P.E.I. municipality began having to use backup power from generators.

That's because Maritime Electric asked users to curtail power use during peak times — in the mornings and evenings — while it worked to repair a transformer at the Sherbrooke substation that is a conduit for half of Summerside's power.

During that time, the dome's servers temporarily disconnected, which led to a slight deflation of the roof. That caused damage to some of the cables that support the structure, said Tanner Doiron, the city's events and communications manager. 

"It's a unique beast. Obviously if this comes down, you know, it's not good," Doiron said. "There's a lot of small things that can cause error…. While it might look simple on the outside, there [are] a lot of different moving parts mechanically." 

A crew with the Montreal-based company that installed the dome is expected on the Island later this week to do a safety inspection, and replacement parts have been ordered. 

The dome is now off the generators and running on full power as a safety precaution, Doiron said. 

"We're hopeful that it's not going to require a long-term repair. However, this is a specialized facility," he said. "I'm hopeful they'll have it back in service… within a week's time, but we also don't want to have our users in there if it's unsafe to do so." 

Like the rugby teams that practise there, some soccer programs also had to readjust their schedules while the dome is offline. 

Jason Eden, executive director of the P.E.I. Soccer Association, said its Wednesday leagues have had to cancel one game so far, while Saturday practices have been moved to Stratford. 

He said there is some flexibility in scheduling, so long as the dome isn't closed for too long. 

"Everybody's just kind of sitting around wondering: 'How long will this facility be offline?' I think we'll get more into that concern from the players if it looks like it's extended beyond the one-week to two-week period," Eden said.