Coaches excited to emerge from the darkness of The Pit

Shiny facility | Speedy says facility will create a new atmosphere for V-Reds

University of New Brunswick men's volleyball coach Dan McMorran and women's basketball coach Jeff Speedy have spent a lot of time in The Pit.

The nickname for the Lady Beaverbrook gym, located at the foot of the campus, reflects its design and atmosphere. Walled in with bleachers steeply rising up, the gym looks kind of like a pit. Add in the darkness from a lack of windows and dark tiles and fixtures, visiting teams often found it intimidating.

For McMorran, saying goodbye to The Pit in favour of the modern gym at the $62-million Richard J. Currie Center up the hill comes with mixed emotions. The Pit was his home as a UNB student-athlete when he graduated with his undergraduate degree in physical education and recreation, and he used it frequently when he returned to get his bachelor of education degree in the mid-1990s.

He came back again to the campus in 2004, where he's now in his eighth year as coach of the men's volleyball team.

"The Pit was an amazing facility during our games because you could, with a lot of fan support, create quite an exciting, intense, electrifying atmosphere," McMorran said.

"We had at our playoff match last year a little over 1,100 fans at the Lady Beaverbrook gym ... The bleachers were so close to the action, we really felt like we had a home court advantage. We really, really enjoyed the game time at the Lady Beaverbrook gym."

But sentiment aside, McMorran said the facility was antiquated.

On Friday, the public will be introduced to the university's new sports and wellness facility as part of the official opening of the Currie centre.

Gone are the pillars that blocked people's view at the old gym. Instead, there's a welcoming expanse of bleachers with a seating capacity of 1,442 and sunlight shines down on the state-of-the-art gym.

"Our locker room facilities and, I think, just even meeting rooms and those kinds of things in general, were definitely behind the times, and it was time for us to definitely upgrade," McMorran said.

"If it was a busy weekend of competition at The Pit where the men's basketball, men's volleyball, women's basketball and women's volleyball were all playing matches, there were times when visiting teams had to change inside of classrooms. It put a lot of strain on resources during those busy kinds of events."

With the Currie centre, sports teams are in locker rooms that are the envy of the country, he said.

"They spared no expense with the interior of our facilities, and it's a very, very shiny place to be in here right now," McMorran said. "We still haven't gotten over the fact that when we walk in for a practice that we're able to walk into a facility of this magnitude.

"The floor is beautiful. The equipment that we have here is all brand new and state of the art. Everything from our scorers' tables to the chairs that the athletes and visiting teams will be seated on are very, very professional looking. There's a real positive side to that."

McMorran said the expanded bleacher seating will allow both basketball and volleyball teams to continue to build their fan base.

"Every year it's steadily building," McMorran said.

"We're really looking forward to opening up our league next week against (the) University of British Columbia. They'll be in town here Tuesday and Wednesday for 7:30 p.m. games, so we're looking forward to seeing what kind of atmosphere this new facility will be able to create. We're really excited about playing our first games of the year at the Currie centre."

For Speedy, there's no great love lost for the Lady Beaverbrook gym.

Women's basketball had called that facility home since the 1940s, but moving to the Currie centre is the difference between night and day, Speedy said.

"It's more spacious ... The performance court where we practice daily has six glass backboards, as opposed to two in the old gym. The only lines on the court are basketball and volleyball and the surface on the court is professional. It was kind of like a skating rink at the old LB gym. Just from a playing and practising perspective, it's much better," Speedy said.

"The Pit had the walls and had that closed-in kind of shoebox feeling. And because it was so small, it could get very loud in there, but we have a lot more seats in here ... plus the bleachers come down right to the sideline in a horseshoe on both sidelines and one end line. With more people and with the fans actually being closer to the action, I think it's going to create an even louder atmosphere," he said.

Add two huge high-definition video screens and a sound system that works, Speedy said, and the atmosphere is going to be more than could ever have been envisioned at the old gym.

"I think we'll get a different age and a different interest of fans just because there's more going on. It's going to be a little bit more of an event than just the game with the music and the screens and some of the things we're doing out in the lobby with the V-Reds fun-zone for kids," Speedy said.

Team rooms, pro-style individual lockers, the V-Reds logo on the carpeting, private showers and bathroom facilities have all the hallmarks of a professional team, he said.

The athletic, wellness and creation centre was built thanks in part to a $20-million donation from UNB chancellor Richard Currie.

His gift is the largest single donation a New Brunswick university has received.