<p>Great! let’s hope it stays that way. You know they want to destroy some forest to build new sports facilities.</p>
<p>Not just forest, old-growth forest - including white oaks that are probably some of the oldest on the east coast. I do love hokie football, but destroying that forest so that players will have a shorter walk to the practice facility is just nuts (seriously, that’s one of the arguments the program is using - NCAA caps on practice time means that the players can’t afford the extra five minute walk from the locker room to the proposed alternate site).</p>
<p>Yeah, basically here’s what all that boils down to.</p>
<p>1) We do need an indoor practice facility. I was actually really surprised to find out we didn’t have one most of the year because track/field takes up the indoor practice space. So we definitely need something.</p>
<p>2) There are two proposed places it could go. Where the forest is or where the tennis courts/skating rink are.</p>
<p>3) The line about it being a longer walk is BS. They want to put it in the forest because the tennis court/skating rink site is already earmarked for something else later on.</p>
<p>4) The reason that some students (and this is generally the only objection that I’m aware of) don’t want it on the tennis/skating site is that, well, then there won’t be a skating rink and there isn’t a replacement planned until the new gym goes up, and that’s gonna be a while. On the order of 5-10 years. The roller hockey club team probably couldn’t practice/compete during that time, and without a club team they probably won’t bother putting a new rink in, and you see where that ones going?</p>
<p>I say they stick it up the hill somewhere and keep a bus next to the practice field in case they get the sudden changes of weather they’re supposedly worried about.</p>