The grounds team at BMO field, managed by Head Groundskeeper, Robert Heggie, have recently upgraded their pitch to a SISGrass hybrid pitch, an innovation from SIS Pitches which will create the perfect surface for their elite athletes.
Home to Toronto FC and Toronto Argonauts, the stadium has evolved over time with the needs of their players. Originally playing and training on 3G surfaces, they changed to a natural pitch in 2009. The stadium is now a combination of natural and synthetic fibres, with the look and feel of natural grass, but the hard-wearing characteristics that synthetic surfaces can provide.
Hybrid grass, which is 95% natural turf, reinforced with synthetic fibres, is the perfect solution for a stadium pitch receiving heavy use. Praising the new system, Robert Heggie, said: “the players won’t even know it’s there”.
It’s not easy being a groundskeeper. But this will give me the peace of mind in January, February, December — those seasons when I just know it’s tough and we can’t get the root structure that we need.
Robert Heggie, Head Groundskeeper, BMO Field
The pitch at BMO has already seen positive results, with 3 games and 2 training sessions played last week, with no marks on the surface at all.
The award-winning technology from SIS Pitches was also installed at 6 out of 12 2018 World Cup stadiums. The reinforced turf system provides a stabilised surface and more playing hours than a 100% natural grass pitch. The Luzhniki pitch, used at the final was used for a total of 84 hours in just 5 weeks, for training sessions, games and ceremonies and was in excellent condition for the final.
George Mullan, CEO of SIS Pitches said without the hybrid technology, the turf would have struggled to survive the season at BMO Field: “When you have an audience of one and a half billion, you just cannot afford a mistake. That’s the advantage of a hybrid stitched system. It works very well in high-wear areas.”
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