Along with the one turf at Newsweek it was just enough to cater for the average of 5000 people who play each year. Portrait had two hockey turfs one of which was New Sealant’s only international turf and now they are in the ruins. On September 4 2011 a 7.

1 magnitude earthquake hit Canterbury and destroyed many homes and businesses including Portrait Park. The cost for the rebuild of Portrait Park was estimated to between 6 and 8 million dollars.To fix the major land movement and liquefaction the plan was to build a gravel raft under the turfs. Tim Shannon the chief of Canterbury hockey said it made no sense to spend that sort of money to bring the facility back to how it was. The September earthquakes left Christopher with only 2 turfs to cater for the 5000 people. Lucky the earthquake was just after the winter season so it didn’t have as big of an impact as it would have if it occurred through winter.The lack of turfs had an impact on pre season trainings.

Previous years I would train twice a week through the off season but in 2011/2012 we could not get turf time and had one training a week at Burnside high turf which was not a full length turf and had a lot of bumps and cracks. This had an effect on me and my team because we weren’t training on a quality turf.