Now that the dust has settled around Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre (SLSFSC) they are looking forward to an active and vibrant 2018.

Construction crews are long gone and the revamped sports/ fitness centre is finding its groove after a couple years of disruption.

Robin Mitchell, General Manager of SLSFSC, says numbers and stats are strong with overall feedback being positive. "Some of the interesting stats that are coming out now that we have had about 5 or 6 months operating with the new expansion we are seeing on average about 13,000-15,000 people a month utilizing the aquatic centre, which is great to see. It is stabilized now and we're trying to get our programming down."

So far 1600 swim lessons have been completed with roughly 90% of registrants being local kids and individuals, with the other 10% coming from Rocky View County or the City of Calgary. The Cochrane Curling Club has also seen phenomenal growth adding 21 new teams to its roster and an increase in youth curlers either learning the sport or moving up the ranks. But where things get exciting is in membership numbers. "Currently, just after December we are just over 3000 members in the facility and again when you look at where we were a year ago at around 773 there has been tremendous growth." 

While some programs have been turfed, tweaked, or created the focus of SLSFSC in 2018 will be meeting community demand. "We are working through some of the program efficiencies and deficiencies to get people through the lines quicker to get people into classes or add classes where we see numbers increasing. It has been a work in progress but the members and users have given us the time and feedback in a polite manner to be able to handle and address some of the situations but we'll continue to find more efficiencies as we move along."

Exciting additions coming to the centre will be a timing system for swim meets and the opening of the highly anticipated climbing wall. "What we'll have is five traditional routes. One route will be for the youngsters called a 'Cube Climb' so they're larger great big cubes that the kids can hold onto and maybe the one that most of the teenagers and adults venture to is the 'Faceoff', which is a plexiglass double-sided climbing where you race the other person to the top. All of the systems will be on a self-belay or auto-belay system which is just a lot easier and safer for people to be able to climb on and it will house kids ages 4 years old and up."

On a greater scope, SLSFSC is being viewed not only as a centre to promote health and fitness, but a community gathering spot. "There is an awful lot of open areas, seating and benches it's becoming a place where we see others come down with their spouse or kids and they're socializing, having a coffee, getting a Jugo Juice or going to Pat's; they're here for a variety of different reasons that maybe they would have gone or tried to figure out some other place to go, so it is quickly combining mind, body, and spirit- the place for all to go."