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.
On Saturday, Stade Saputo came back to life. And this revival started at Centre Nutrilait.
Located on the corner of Notre-Dame East St. and Letourneux Ave., the Montreal Impact’s training centre never really stops bustling with activity. Day after day, all year long, whether the first team is there or not, the crew led by Pierre Robert, Manager of Centre Nutrilait Operations, strives to maintain the premises at the very highest level – all the more so when the fields are still covered with snow.
Starting in January, before players from all age categories return in late February, initial maintenance work gets underway. A bit of paint here, a new shelf there, nothing major but little gestures that matter for the overall condition of the facility.
“This centre is home to a professional team and some 200 youngsters, which stirs things up,” says Pierre Robert. “Minor damage is inevitable, and we’ve got to refresh some walls here and there, for example. We use those winter months to restore the interior design.”
Once preseason has begun, the staff’s objective is to turn Centre Nutrilait into the players’ second, perfectly comfortable, home. All season long, Pierre Robert gets to work at 6:30am or 7am to do his first cleanliness round and touch base with the night security attendant. Starting at 7am, other staff, from the chef to the maintenance attendants tasked with cleaning over 12,000 square feet of floors every day, start flocking to the Centre.
All of them work hand in hand to make sure that everything remains functional at the Centre, all the while avoiding bursting the players’ bubble. That goes for facilities both indoors and outdoors, where four fields – natural grass for two, artificial grass for two – are at the players’ disposal.
Centre Nutrilait staff works closely with the Sporting Grounds department to control their condition and maintain their availability. In the spring, Pierre Robert “keeps his eye on the thermometer.” This season, for example, staff ran snow blowers to clear the synthetic fields as soon as weather would permit – sometimes in the middle of the night –, due to the limited availability of the Olympic Stadium field.
This week, at last, the tarps that covered the natural grass field were removed. The goal remains to recreate the conditions of the Stade Saputo field in order for the players not to feel disoriented when going from one facility to the other. (Centre Nutrilait, like Stade Saputo, has its fox friend, which always helps.)
“Players, as well as the entire staff, are extremely kind and very respectful of the work that we do,” says the Manager of Operations. “We want the facilities to be nice and functional, to feel like it’s their home. They’re professionals, but they all take the time to say hello. We remain at a distance, but when they come and talk to us, everything’s friendly.”
Their work isn’t limited to the first team facilities. Centre Nutrilait also includes offices, a conference room, an auditorium and locker rooms – the premises are also home to the Impact Academy and Soccer Schools – that all require some form of maintenance or preparation every day. And these tasks increase when a tournament such as the International U14 tournament presented by the Fédération des producteurs d’œufs du Québec takes place at Centre Nutrilait – some of those events have drawn over 300 spectators. In this context, having to clean the locker rooms seven times a day, all the while arranging maintenance outdoors, isn’t anything out of the ordinary.
“We love pro sports,” says Pierre Robert. “We love the atmosphere, the challenge, the rush of adrenaline I’ve been at the Centre since day one. We spare no efforts on maintenance, because we want to take care of it. We’re proud of it, and I’m proud of the remarkable work that my staff does. The Centre is, first and foremost, about cooperation.”
