Impact Media strives to bring you as much information as possible on your club. The players on the field are crucial, but the club is also about passionate women and men that take care of every aspect of the organization. In this space, we’ll introduce you to some of these people who play in the shadows.
Even the Bleu-blanc-noir needs a green thumb.
Simple terms suffice to describe the greatest challenge for Roch Poulin, director of sporting grounds, and attendants Serge Tardif and Mamadou Camara: keep the grass alive. But that’s easier said than done.
If you own one of those nice backyards, you’ve probably been guilty of procrastinating when comes the time to mow the lawn. At the Impact, one can’t simply argue that the weather is too hot or wet; every field has to be trimmed five times per week, as the grass must be precisely 17 millimetres long at all times.
“The more you delay that, the more stubble and clippings there are, and the more difficult it gets to get rid of those,” says Roch Poulin. “We don’t use a rotary mower, rather some sort of reel mower that’s softer on grass. The highest stress for grass comes from mowing.
“I mowed this morning. On Wednesday, I monitor the watering – we’re in a dry period –, on Tuesday, I mow, on Monday, I monitor the watering, on Sunday, I mow…”
In a nutshell, Roch goes to work every day – he made that decision himself and imposes it on no employees. Grass, he says, is a “24/7 job.” Fertilization is an ongoing process. The Impact’s fields require six times the standard nitrogen input, not only to keep the grass healthy but also to reduce recovery times and to maintain a nice, bright green colour for television.
Complicating these tasks is Ville de Montréal’s ban on pesticides. “It’s a challenge, because the grass is getting stamped on all the time,” says Roch. “It’ll be even worse when Real Madrid come here and train twice a day for nine days. The Impact first team will train at Stade Saputo to give it a rest.”
This job can’t be done successfully without exceptional meticulousness. Its core principle, according to Roch, is “following Mother Nature’s will.” It’s warm outside? “Watch the grass grow.” It’s colder? “All systems go, we’re catching up.”
And it doesn’t stop in the winter. Monitoring the fields is required.
“We cover the grass with a tarp,” says Roch. “We need isolation, but more than anything, we need air circulation. With global warming, we can’t heat the ground up too much. It may surprise you, but under a tarp and with isolation, it won’t get much colder than minus-two Celsius. Fungi and mould grow fast.
“The method, in years past, was to place straw over the grass. Straw holds seven times its own weight in water. These days, with climate change, Mother Nature regularly drops a bucket of water on our heads in December or January, which is an issue. In 2014, it was a catastrophe: between four and six inches of ice. Soil emits methane gas, which gets trapped under ice, which asphyxiates the grass.”
Roch Poulin gained this expertise over 20 years of working for the Saputo family. Before Impact president Joey Saputo asked him to enter the world of soccer, Roch took care of the Saint-Raphaël golf course, an 18-holer at first. When another 18 holes were added, Roch himself designed and managed the project.
“It got me hooked on the creation process. I loved it. Then, I also took care of what I built. It’s unlike me to build something and leave it to someone else. I built it, so I want to take care of it and complete the process.”
As a director, Roch Poulin doesn’t just take care of fields. He also takes care of the financial aspect of it all – remaining on budget is one of his strengths, he says – and of his staff. But he leaves “a lot of wiggle room” to Serge and Mamadou, who took over the team’s new project, Centre Nutrilait. The training centre is their baby, Roch says.
Serge, the more pragmatic of the two attendants, takes charge of the natural grass fields, while Mamadou manages the artificial grass fields, which fit his “artistic” nature better, Roch points out.
But one trait is common to all three men.
“You have to be passionate about this,” says Roch. “Work comes first, before a lot of stuff. No breaks.”
