Group Plans Olympic Field Hockey Facility

A Ventura County field hockey association is proposing to build a 100-yard-long playing field with artificial turf at Tapo Canyon Park in the hills north of Simi Valley to train local players for the 1996 Olympics.

The playing field would be the first facility in the country dedicated solely to field hockey, according to national experts on the sport.

Ventura County’s Field Hockey Federation, which runs programs for youth and adults throughout the county, sent players to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1991 Pan-American Games in Havana.

Although the U. S. team did not qualify for the Olympics in Barcelona this year, it is guaranteed a spot in the 1996 competition in Atlanta because it will represent the host country.

About one-third of the members of the 1996 national squad for men’s field hockey are expected to come from Ventura County.

But local organizers of the sport say that to be competitive internationally they need the type of artificial turf field that is used in other countries and in the Olympics.

The men’s team now practices mainly on the grass football field at Moorpark College, which “is sort of equivalent to preparing a basketball team by playing on the street,” said Tom Harris, a Westlake Village engineer who is one of the founders of the Ventura County field hockey organization.

Harris and other organizers said they want to build the artificial turf facility as soon as possible so they can begin training players for the 1996 Olympics.

But the group could miss its goal.

Officials from the county, which owns and manages Tapo Canyon Park, said they generally support the proposed playing field but are concerned about possible traffic or environmental problems.

The rugged, winding two-lane stretch of Tapo Canyon Road that leads to the park may not be able to handle the traffic for the field hockey games, County Supervisor Vicky Howard said.

Crowds of 1,000 to 2,000 people would be expected at the field hockey tournaments, which are held four times each year, Harris said. But most of the time, traffic would be limited to the players and an audience of 50 to 100 people.

“It’s not as much a spectator sport as a player sport,” Harris said.

Yet county officials are also concerned about how much grading would be required to build the field, seating areas and the necessary parking lots.

The entire facility is expected to cover at least six acres in the hilly, 220-acre park where the only existing development is a small equestrian arena and children’s play lot.

To get the field level, part of the site may have to be raised five feet, said Ron Blakemore, planning and development manager for recreation services in the county.

“That gets into a lot of earth-moving,” he said.

Because of such concerns, the county may need to do a detailed environmental study of the proposed playing field, which could delay any decision on the issue for up to two years, Blakemore said.

Meanwhile, Ventura County’s teams will continue to practice on grass fields except when they occasionally rent the artificial turf playing field at East Los Angeles College, which is also used by high school football teams.

Mark Ruvalcaba, 25, who competed in the 1991 Pan-American Games and hopes to be on the 1996 Olympics team, said that playing field hockey on grass and on artificial turf is like playing two different games.

The field hockey balls, which are slightly larger than baseballs, bounce more on grass, forcing players to keep their sticks at a more vertical angle than they would do in games on artificial turf, Ruvalcaba said.

Field hockey players in India and other countries where the sport is popular grow up playing on artificial turf, he said.

“It would help all the U. S. in hockey” to get an artificial turf facility in Ventura County, Ruvalcaba said.