Percy Perry Stadium is a multi-purpose, fully lit stadium in

Coquitlam Coquitlam ( ) is a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly suburban, Coquitlam is the List of cities in British Columbia, sixth-largest city in the province, with a population of 148,625 in 2021, and one of the 21 municipa ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. It was built for the 1991 B.C. Summer Games, as part of the district's 100th anniversary, and has featured events with crowds of over 4,000 spectators. Prior to 2006, the stadium had been named "Town Centre Stadium", but was renamed to "Percy Perry Stadium" in honour of long-standing track and field coach

Percy Perry Percy Adolphus Perry (June 12, 1930 – January 5, 2005) was a Canadian track and field coach from Coquitlam, British Columbia. Personal life Perry was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and played on Trinidad's national soccer team before immigrat ...

who died in 2005. Percy Perry Stadium features a 400m polyflex synthetic rubberized track surface, as well as separate areas for

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

high jump The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the Myc ...

, discus,

hammer A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as w ...

shot put The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. The shot put competition for men has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival in 1896, and women's ...

and

javelin A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon, but today predominantly for sport. The javelin is almost always thrown by hand, unlike the sling, bow, and crossbow, which launch projectiles with th ...

Teams

Percy Perry Stadium is home to the

Pacific Coast Soccer League The Pacific Coast Soccer League is an amateur soccer league, currently featuring teams from British Columbia. In the past clubs from Washington and Oregon have competed. PCSL is considered to be British Columbia's premier summer league. The ...

's Khalsa Sporting Club, the

Coquitlam Cheetahs The Coquitlam Cheetahs are a non-profit Canadian track and field club based in Coquitlam, British Columbia. Their home track is Percy Perry Stadium, named after former Cheetahs' coach Percy Perry. The Cheetahs were founded in 1962, and the team ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

club, and previously served as the home of the

CMFSC Xtreme Coquitlam Metro-Ford Soccer Club (''CMFSC''), formerly known as ''FC Xtreme'' and ''Tri-Cities Xtreme'', are a Canadians, Canadian men's and women's soccer club soccer team, founded in the city of Coquitlam, British Columbia in 2003. The team is ...

Whitecaps FC Reserves Whitecap is the sea foam crest over the wind waves, waves. As of popular culture, Whitecaps may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * Whitecaps (The Sopranos), "Whitecaps" (''The Sopranos''), episode 52 of the television series ''The Sopranos' ...

and the defunct

Tri-City Bulldogs The Tri-City Bulldogs were a Canadian Junior Football team based in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The Bulldogs played in the B.C. Football Conference, which itself is part of the Canadian Junior Football League (CJFL) and competes annually for th ...

of the

Canadian Junior Football League The Canadian Junior Football League (CJFL) is a national Major Junior Canadian football league consisting of 19 teams playing in five provinces across Canada. The teams compete annually for the Canadian Bowl. Many CJFL players move on to profess ...

Events

In addition to the B.C. Summer Games, the facility also hosted the 1993

Canadian Track and Field Championships The Canadian Track and Field Championships is an annual outdoor track and field competition organized by Athletics Canada, which serves as the Canadian national championships for the sport. The most recent edition of the event took place in Montrea ...

. The

BC Highland Games ScotFestBC: The British Columbia Highland Games is the second oldest continually running Highland Games in British Columbia, Canada. The games are run by the ScotFestBC Organizing Committee as a program of the United Scottish Cultural Society of ...

are held on the last Saturday of every June at the stadium. Since 2013, Western Canada's largest Functional Fitness Competition, The CanWest Games, have been held every July. As a warmup to the

2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 16th edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup (formerly called the FIFA World Youth Championship), hosted by Canada from 30 June to 22 July 2007. Argentina defeated the Czech Republic in the title game by the score ...

, a friendly match between Scotland and Canada had been scheduled for

Swangard Stadium Swangard Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Central Park in Burnaby, British Columbia. Primarily used for soccer, rugby, football, and athletics, the stadium also used to be home to the Simon Fraser Clan football team and the Vancouver Whitec ...

in neighbouring

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard I ...

on March 23rd. Weeks of heavy rain had turned the natural turf at Swangard into muck, and at the last moment the game was shifted to Percy Perry Stadium and its new FieldTurf surface. This was the stadium's second-ever international match (the other was a U-23 match in 1996). In spite of poor weather and just a day's notice of the venue change, a sellout crowd of 4,265 watched Canada upset Scotland 3-1. In July 2008, Percy Perry Stadium hosted the 2008 ILF Under-19 World Lacrosse Championships.

Renovations

Beginning in the spring of 2007, the city of Coquitlam undertook a $10 million expansion to the facilities in and around Percy Perry Stadium, in order to expand the number of events and tournaments that could be held at the facility throughout the year.Coquitlam Commits $10 Million to Town Centre Tournament Facility Project
/ref> The natural grass inside the track was replaced with FieldTurf, two new fully lit FieldTurf fields were constructed north of the stadium, and the older

Astroturf AstroTurf is an American subsidiary of SportGroup that produces artificial turf for playing surfaces in sports. The original AstroTurf product was a short-pile synthetic turf invented in 1965 by Monsanto. Since the early 2000s, AstroTurf has m ...

at Cunnings Field to the west has also been replaced with FieldTurf. Following the 2007-2008 renovations that saw the removal of bleacher seating, permanent seating capacity was reduced to 1,482.

References

{{reflist
Sports venues in Coquitlam Soccer venues in British Columbia Canadian football venues in British Columbia Athletics (track and field) venues in Canada Multi-purpose stadiums in British Columbia Sports venues in British Columbia Lacrosse venues in Canada