The official opening of the Baysport Stadium in Kerikeri at the end of last month should help make inline hockey - one of the sports using the stadium - more accessible for local people. Inline hockey isn't the cheapest of sports - expensive gear and even more expensive travel to farflung venues to play - both add up to prohibitive costs. But having a stadium to play will help - big time. Northland Stingrays, a club largely made up of Kerikeri players, will use the stadium, as their competition base for the Northern Regional Inline Hockey competition. Treasurer Jenny Graham said the hall's stage one opening had been a long time coming but now would start to save them cash, each time they had a home game. "You play each team twice in the competition, at home and away, so it means now that instead of having our home games in Whangarei, we get to have them in Kerikeri so the Auckland teams can come up to us - well that's the theory anyway." The draw for this weekend's matches still has the Stingrays playing in Whangarei - so the club has protested, but has yet to hear if the venue has changed. It has come so far it doesn't expect "no" for an answer - for long. The club has been running its popular Friday night casual skating for over a year to raise funds for the venue, as well as other fundraising projects. The Baysport Trust received further good news last week, with the funding to put down a sports court floor - so that the local basketball teams can begin to use the stadium for competition as well. The floor will complete stage one of the construction programme. Stage two comprises of adding spectator seating and stage three will be an extension to the building, to include changing sheds and toilets and referee's rooms. The trust committee is comprised of three sporting groups: inline hockey, indoor soccer and basketball. Once completed, martial arts are also expected to utilise the facility with judo already expressing interest in using the first floor area. The next addition to the Baysport Stadium is an electronic timing system - and fundraising has already started.
