The Green Bay Blizzard indoor football team will hold training camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but are making themselves at home by bringing 30,000 pounds of artificial turf along.
Blizzard players and staff are moving training camp to Michigan Technological University in Houghton. Players will train at the University’s Quad Core Fitness Center, a state-of-the-art sports facility that is only missing one thing: artificial turf.
To solve the problem, team leaders will load 30,000 pounds of artificial turf rolls stored at Green Bay’s Resch Center, truck the tur to MTU, and lay it down for the eight days of training camp. When camp is over, the turf will be rolled up, trucked back down to Green Bay, and installed at the Resch Center in time for the March 19 home opener.
“Indoor football is a fast game,” said Ryan Hopson, director of sales for the Blizzard. “It’s critical the players get a feel for the actual turf we’ll use in a game, but our home arena has a full schedule before the season starts so we can’t practice there.”
The artificial surface is 85 feet wide and 50 yards long with eight-yard endzones and is about 1.5 inches thick.
“The Resch Center – PMI Entertainment team has been incredible throughout this process and without their help and participation this would never happen.” Hopson said.
effort is spearheaded by Blizzard owners, Larry and Kathy Treankler. Larry Treankler, is CEO of The Village Companies, headquartered in Pulaski, and he arranged a network of support to relocate the team to the Upper Peninsula. In addition to MTU, the move involves:
• Northwinds Adventures where the team will set up base camp in cabins minutes outside of Houghton;
• John Mackey is the trucking organization transporting the turf;
• Meal sponsors providing food for the team include: 1902 Tap & Grill and Schmidt’s Corner Bar & Grill;
• Keweenaw Base Camp
• The Village Companies
“We wanted to create a true sense of team by creating a retreat atmosphere, but we couldn’t do it without the help of so many partners,” said Larry Treankler. “This is really a life lesson about how working cooperatively creates great things for so many people and our community.”
The Blizzard will welcome 32-35 recruits to training camp for the 2023 season.
