Noah Welch, the man behind Dome Sports in Red Deer County, with his daughter at the facility's open house on Saturday. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

under the dome

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Nov 10, 2019 | 11:05 AM

At 80 feet high, and 107,000 square feet, the new sports dome in Red Deer County is quite the sight to behold, both from the inside and outside.

Noah Welch, an American hockey Olympian turned Red Deer resident, is behind Dome Sports, which held an open house on Saturday at its 334 Energy Way location.

Welch praised the team behind getting the business up and running, and spoke about the bigger picture behind bringing such a facility to central Alberta.

“Our main goal is to level the playing field for athletes in cental Alberta to compete and to reach their max potential in field sports, whatever that may be,” Welch said. We have a holistic approach to that and with my background being an elite athlete, I’ve got an idea of what that takes. Everything is age appropriate, and we want to take athletes in, help them get better, and send them back out to their teams.”

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Welch added that while there are other domes across Canada, including in Calgary and Edmonton, their business models aren’t quite the same in terms of having a focus on athlete development.

“We’re here for the community. This is truly a facility for them,” he said. “I talk a lot about devleoping athletes, but we have different programs and leagues for men’s and women’s rec, bocce days for older folks, and programs that start as early as six-months-old.”

Another building attached to the dome will soon house a cafe, and several multi-purpose rooms. Dome Sports received a development permit from Red Deer County last March.

Thus far, Red Deer City Soccer, St. Joseph Baseball Academy and Innisfail Baseball have all booked time inside the dome, and Welch hopes those partnerships will continue moving forward.

More information is at TheDomeRedDeer.com.