PC39 - Special Section over 10,000 - Listowel Independent Plus

Between The Lines Sports Campus 275 Rocher Rd. Listowel, Ontario 519-418-6864 Info@BTLSports.ca www.betweenthelines.ca Monday-Sunday: 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Grand Opening:

Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020 12-3 p.m.

Physical Distancing, Masks Required Tours Available in Groups of 10

Officially Introducing North Perth’s Premier Multi-Recreational Sports Facility

Leaders in: Agricultural & Commercial Construction Grain Handling & Storage Congratulations,Trevor and Jill Reading on the opening of Between the Lines Sports Campus.

Your business will be a great addition to your community!

18 Industrial Road, Walkerton, ON N0G 2V0 519-881-0187

Page 10 - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - Independent Plus

Introducing Between the Lines Sports Campus

A

t first glance, it looks more like a multi-use recreational facility that you’d find in London’s Western Fair District or in the Ira Needles area of Kitchener.

But it’s not. Between The Lines is right where it should be, situated in the heart of the North Perth Industrial Park in one of Midwestern Ontario’s fastest-growing communities. Listowel has been waiting a long time for a venue like this, and that wait is finally over.

For Trevor and Jill Reading, longtime local residents and owners of Between The Lines Sports Campus, Listowel was their first and only choice for setting up shop.

“The vision started about a year and a half ago,” explained Trevor, an accomplished baseball coach at multiple levels who cut his teeth in indoor recreational facility operations as a previous owner of the PlayBall Academy in Kitchener. “The project started eight months ago. The first two weeks were pretty nerve-wracking when we were in here, for sure. You get nights like this where there’s soccer going on,

there’s people over playing pickleball, there’s people up in the cages – every aspect is being used. That’s why we did it and that’s how this whole thing works.”

Soccer, pickleball and baseball are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Between The Lines has to offer.

In addition to its massive artificial turf field which serves as BTL’s centerpiece and plays host to countless sportBetween The Lines Sports Campus ing and fitness activities, the building owner Trevor Reading overseeing the houses four batting cages, a synthetic final stages of construction in July. The ice surface, four racquet courts that are sparkling new multi-recreational facility convertible into a regulation-sized volwill mark its grand opening on Sept. 19. leyball venue, and a two-lane walking track. A yoga room, change rooms/ washrooms, showers and a conference/ birthday party room for group rentals are also included. Additionally, Listowel’s Our Town training facility now calls the building home.

Every inch of BTL’s approximately 30,000-square feet is utilized, with its staff The COVID-19 pandemic may have ensuring that all current Public Health thrown a slight wrench into the way things guidelines are being followed in terms of are conducted at BTL, but it has in no way spacing and sanitization. reduced the efficiency, enthusiasm or professionalism in how daily operations are carried out.

“For us right now, it’s 100 per cent about safety,” said Trevor. “We tell every player or person that comes through that door if you’re not on the field, on the courts or in the batting cages, you have to have your mask on. The staff is always going around disinfecting. A lot of touch points.

“The Return to Play protocols tell us once they’re on the playing field, they don’t have to (wear a mask), but when they move station-to-station, they do have to. We’ll follow all the rules. It’s in everyone’s best interest – the safety side of it is our No. 1 priority.”

Taking on a business of this size requires more than just the enthusiasm and hard-working nature of its owners.

BTL’s growing staff includes skilled administrators, experienced coaches

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across a variety of mediums, and is supported by five university co-op students and five high schoolers who happened to fall into their after-school dream job.

Speaking to the building itself, the Readings sourced the vast majority of its materials locally, and only hired local sub-contractors to help them fulfill their vision.

“We just want to thank everyone that has been involved,” said Trevor. “It took a lot of people to make this happen for us – it’s not only us, it’s our staff as well. We have a great staff here.”

And of course, a multi-use recreational facility wouldn’t have a purpose without the people who take advantage of its amenities. Trevor and Jill’s message to their growing clientele is straightforward.

“At the end of the day, we want to make sure that for everybody when they walk in the first thing they say is, ‘wow,’ and when they leave, ‘see you next week.’ It’s not all about us, it’s all about them. We want to make sure they have fun when they’re here.”

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Thursday, September 10, 2020 - Independent Plus - Page 11

batting cages

B

eing a big baseball family, there was no question for the Readings that baseball training was going to be an integral component of Between The Lines.

The facility houses four netting-enclosed batting cages in the north end of the building – two on the upper level and two below adjacent to the field turf. Opting for four high-end Hack Attack model pitching machines (utilized by many U.S. college baseball programs), Trevor Reading explained that two of BTL’s acquisitions are designed for traditional baseball (hardball) use, while the other two accommodate softball players.

Speaking to baseball, BTL’s two machines can be calibrated at a variety of speeds and styles, with settings for Rookie-level players right up to ‘more aggressive’ speeds,

topping out at approximately 86 m.p.h.

“It’ll bring it,” grinned Trevor.

A total of 185 hardballs can be loaded into a Hack Attack machine for one session, with one thrown every 10 seconds with its auto-feeding feature. A batter can swing for half an hour without needing a reload.

“The machine has the capability of throwing all the junk. It’ll throw wicked knuckleballs,” laughed Trevor. “We don’t usually play with that.”

Softball players can access pitching machines with a pre-loading capability of 90 balls, with a top speed of 75 m.p.h. Slopitch enthusiasts can also take advantage of BTL’s batting cages, with the softball machines designed to accommodate groundlevel trajectory to provide an arc for batters of that demographic.

Palmerston Marlins U14 coach Joel Martin, a friend of the Readings who is a regular user of BTL’s cages with his girls’ fastball squads, didn’t take long to be sold on having a premier local option for year-round indoor baseball training.

“It’s awesome to have a facility like this so close by,” he said. “We’ll be using it once a week all winter. Having a first-class facility in town, you can’t beat that.”

Batting cages are a vital tool in off-season training, but BTL didn’t stop there.

Its turf field can also be used for on-field exercises, and has the size capability to conduct a full-on indoor game.

“Coming from the coaching side of it, if you work out all year long, you’re definitely going to get better,” said Trevor.

“With the right teaching and the right coaching… we have everything here to make them better.”

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Page 12 - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - The Independent Plus

Thursday, September 10, 2020 - The Independent Plus - Page 13

Soccer/turf sports

S

o with baseball usually taking the top spot in the Reading household in terms of sports hierarchy, then how did indoor soccer/ futsal become such a primary part of Between The Lines?

“The more and more we started to get into and then we started to realize the size of the facility, I said let’s do the soccer component and make the field

large enough to support the futsal,” recalled Trevor Reading, adding that he got into some in-depth discussions on the subject with local soccer coaches like Kevin Nethercott. “He said the soccer thing would be big. We talked a little more about it, and I didn’t realize soccer was that huge around here.

It is.”

Trevor and Jill took advice like that to heart, resulting in approximately 10,000-square feet of ‘real’ artificial grass located at the epicenter of BTL. The 126’ by 72’ pitch is extremely soft and as close a feel to actual grass as you can get without having the real thing. Cleats are permitted on the 2 ¼ inch deep surface that is supported with rubber in-fill. A lot of rubber in-fill. As in 44,000 pounds of rubber in-fill.

“We had to break the bags open out in the parking lot, and then we had to shovel them into the wheelbarrow,” Trevor recalled of the undertaking split between himself and two other staffers that happened to draw the short straw.

“We probably did 1,200 wheelbarrow loads, at least.”

Soccer BTL’s soccer field is going to get very busy this fall and winter. The facility is launching its indoor youth soccer league beginning Sept. 28 for 12 weeks, with divisions from U8 up to U16 available for registration.

For those 16 and older, adult soccer leagues are also launching in September, with women’s, co-ed and men’s divisions available. Friday nights from 7-9 p.m. are reserved for drop-in adult soccer at BTL, with anyone and everyone above the age of 16 able to jump into a game.

“We probably lucked out a little bit on that side because of the fact that we have such a big square footage, we can keep people social distancing,” said Trevor. “We’ll control the soccer by doing 4-on-4 for the adults and 5-on-5 for the kids.”

All soccer league details are available at betweenthelines.ca.

Baseball With BTL’s batting cages covering the offensive side of baseball training, the field turf can help take care of the defensive end.

“You get nights like this where there’s soccer going on, there’s people over playing pickleball, there’s people up in the cages – every aspect is being used.

That’s why we did it and that’s how this whole thing works.”

Trevor said that the facility has already been approached by a couple organizations to set up camps, with plans for regular baseball training sessions tentatively planned for Sundays going forward. A number of celebrated local baseball talents have already been tapped to help conduct those camps, including Trevor and Jill’s own son, Reece, a standout catcher and utility man currently on the U.S. collegiate circuit with the University of Arkansas.

“The field is so large, and the nice thing about it is you can set the bases up and have a live game,” said Trevor. “It’s big enough that you can actually hit the ball, and the way we always did it is if you hit the far net, they can start running the bases and field it off the net. It’s a lot of fun.”

Additional Uses BTL’s lineup of available sports and activities on the field turf is ever evolving, and truly has no limitations.

Outside of soccer and baseball, the turf has already played host to several other activities. Regular Zumba fitness classes are being conducted and have attracted a wide and everchanging following. Seniors’ bocce ball is one of the items that is forth-

coming later this year. And growing popularity around a game called ‘spikeball’ has made its way onto the BTL field.

Spikeball is played with simply a ball and small horizontal net similar to a trampoline, with teams of two serving to each other into the net and afforded three hits between them to return the serve, with play continuing 360 degrees following the serve.

If a team can’t return the ball onto the net within their three touches, their opponent scores a point. A shot that hits the ground, rim or bounces more than once on the net is no good, with the first team scoring 21 points declared the winner.

“It’s very active,” said Trevor. “If you play spikeball for 15 minutes, you’re exhausted. It’s a lot of fun.”

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Page 14 - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - Independent Plus

court/raCquet sports

B

etween The Lines’ court sports are housed in the southern wing of the Campus, and there you can truly see where the multi-generational aspects of the facility come together.

With a focus on badminton, volleyball and pickleball – one of Canada’s fastest-growing racquet sports – a single large hardwood space hosts them all.

Four regulation-sized badminton/pickleball courts measuring 44’ by 20’ each are available.

Remove the four east-west nets, insert a single north-south net and volleyball enthusiasts have a regulation-sized court of their own.

“We’re envisioning more of a drop-in type of situation, where we have these hours available, and people will kind of find

their own niche,” explained BTL program facilitator Cathy Bitton, a former high school phys. ed teacher with an expertise in instructing youth badminton. “My job is to teach the game, to monitor everything, to make sure there is rotation constantly going. To set up fun little tournaments, and make it a fun, social and physical time.”

The pickleball aspect is being presented as a particularly attractive option for area seniors.

Less aggressive than tennis but incorporating aspects of it along with table tennis, pickleball uses a whiffle-type ball

that can be played in singles or doubles formats. After service to the opposing box, the ball must be returned back and forth over the net in a fashion similar to its tennis and table tennis cousins.

“Pickleball seems to be a big sport for the seniors,” said Trevor Reading. “What our whole goal for the seniors is the social aspect. Get them out, get your body moving, and enjoy the social side of things.”

With a volleyball league also coming this fall to BTL, staff plan to begin with a co-ed format to first gauge interest.

Continued on next page

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court/racquet sports Continued from page 14 If successful, women’s and men’s leagues may follow with regular scheduling.

After recently retiring from Listowel District Secondary School, Bitton was approached by the Readings to take on a staff

position at the Campus, and the offer was something she didn’t hesitate to accept.

Her knowledge of the nearby Stratford Badminton Club and how that indoor facility is run gave her a unique perspective on how to bring that suc-

cess on the court to BTL. “It’s the best of both worlds for me – I love to work with youth and I enjoy working with seniors,” she said. “I feel like a kid coming to camp every day. This job is like a dream come true for me.”

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Page 16 - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - Independent Plus

our town

A

fter eight years of operating the Our Town fitness centre in Listowel, owners Matt and Amy Fischer were given an opportunity to partner with the Reading family and Between The Lines Sports Campus, while moving their popular operation under the same roof.

It was the easiest decision the Fischers ever made.

“The opportunity to be involved with Between The Lines, the Readings and their staff was a great fit I believe for both companies,” said Matt. “It gives us far more opportunities to use their turf and the rest of their facility; for our athletes, it just makes sense.”

Our Town was allocated its own workout space in the upstairs mezzanine of BTL, while also getting access to the facility’s array of amenities. Operating on a strictly membership basis with both monthly and annual packages available, Our Town incorporates a rig-

orous group workout using a number of different exercises, weight-lifting regiments and machines. Interested parties can reach out to the Fischers or BTL for an introduction, take part in a workout or two, and see if Our Town is a good fit for them.

“I think the most difficult thing in fitness is knowing what to do, and having a game plan,” explained Matt. “When you walk into our gym, everything is presented to you and you just follow along. You just do it. I always relate it to that I’m not a dentist, I go to a dentist when I need an expert. I’m not an expert in a lot of things, but we’re experts in what this process is, and so we encourage other people to use us as a professional entity. Fitness is really just science; we can break that down and when we have people come in, it just works. We have a great group of people, everyone gets along, because everyone is there for

the same reason.”

Our Town is currently conducting 6 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. classes, but is flexible upon demand. Class sizes are also kept in line with current Public Health guidelines.

The Fischers and their staff have historically worked with local sports organizations like the Listowel Junior B Cyclones, and have gained a professional notoriety for producing excellent physical results.

Our Town can be followed on Facebook and Instagram (otc_ ourtown), and can be reached directly through their messaging options or by calling 519291-8906 for more information.

“There’s so much camaraderie back and forth,” said Matt of Our Town and BTL’s professional partnership. “The Readings are fantastic people, sports and family-oriented people. We’re incredibly excited to be working with them for sure.”

STAFF DIRECTORY Trevor Reading...Owner Jill Reading..........Owner Rachel Suffern....General Manager Karen Cameron...Operations Manager Cathy Bitton....... Program Facilitator Bryce Kuepfer.......Recreational Coordinator Nancy Kaufman....Recreation Associate

Sara Reading...... Recreation Associate Zach Harrow....... Recreation Associate Taylor Aylward... Recreation Associate Daphnie More..... Recreation Associate Cody Kuepfer...... Recreation Associate

lululemon APPAREL

Brayden Harrow.... Recreation Associate

B

Jensen Chapman... Recreation Associate

etween The Lines Sports is excited to be an authorized retailer of lululemon in part with the Strategic Sales Program. We are thrilled to offer core lululemon items, along with select seasonal offerings in our retail space.

This space is open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Monday through Sunday – stop by to view all of our products and available inventory. From yoga to baseball, the BTL Team is passionate about finding you the best product so you can live #TheSweatLife.

Tate Vader.......... Recreation Associate Devlin Langer..... Recreation Associate Morgan Kuepfer....Zumba Instructor All written content for this special section courtesy of Dan McNee/Listowel Banner.

All photos courtesy of Dan McNee and Tyler Bitton.

Production layout by Marie McKertcher/Listowel Banner.

Ad sales compiled by Nick Seiler and Bill Huether.

Congratulations on your Grand Opening

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Steelway Building Systems is the proud supplier of the custom steel building for Between the Lines Sports Campus, one of the largest athletic facilities in rural Ontario. This 27,000 square foot campus offers a wide range of amenities that facilitate baseball, soccer, badminton, pickleball, hockey and a range of classes.

CONGRATULATIONS to the Reading family and all of the MVPs on the Between the Lines team!

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Between the Lines Ad.indd 1

2020-09-02 4:47 PM