Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre remains open to the public

COCHRANE— Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre is still open for business despite the move back to Stage One that was announced by the provincial government on April 6.

Although the step back means patrons can no longer use the facilities without supervision, many of the programs, the fitness centre, and the aquatic centre are all still open to members and non-members.

One-on-one supervised training sessions are allowed in the fitness centre for no extra cost. The supervised training sessions are not personal training sessions, which does have an additional fee associated with the service.

In addition to the fitness centre, the PLAY Now family programming, ice surface bookings, gymnasium and turf bookings, the climbing wall and the aquatic centre activities, including lane swimming, are all available at the Family Sports Centre.

Use of the facilities is only allowed through bookings, which are opened up 24 hours in advance of the given timeslot.

Michelle Everett, sales and marketing manager of the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre, said sessions have been filling up very quickly, often within a few hours of opening.

“The time we’re releasing these is six in the morning, and they’re filling up quite fast for all of our activities and amenities,” she said.

Brook Sabourin, programs manager at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre, said that the warmer weather means they can move many of the high-intensity classes outside.

“We’re able to run our spin bikes outside, so we’re doing class out there, we’re doing out bootcamps and we’re even offering yoga on our grassy space beside the spray park. A lot of our indoor classes that were really popular, we’re just going with it and doing it outside,” Sabourin said. “Once we’re outside we don’t need to be low-intensity anymore. These are the high-intensity classes that a lot of our members and public love.”

Although the province’s announcement causes a temporary postponement of bookings at the facility, Everett said, the staff and members are all excited to be back making use of the facilities.

“Our goal is ‘what can we do for the community and our members,’” she said. “People were expecting that we were just going back to not offering a lot … People are really thrilled.”