Rogers Tennis Dome Great Addition for Thunder Bay!
by Scott A. Sumner
Jamie Grieve is the Director of Tennis at the Thunder Bay Community Tennis Centre and Rogers Tennis Dome. He has been either on the board or employed by the tennis centre since 1990 - for 36 years. Jamie has had an elite level certification with the racket sports professional association for 26 years. He started playing tennis as a 12 year old at the Confederation College Fitness Centre Bubble, almost every day right after school.
I asked him some questions about the impressive new Rogers Tennis Dome that has recently been completed at the Thunder Bay Community Tennis Centre.
When did you start thinking about adding indoor tennis here?
“ We have been working on the Rogers Tennis Dome project for about three or four years ago now.
“ When the Confederation College Fitness Centre decided they were not going to replace their dome one of our members actually paid for and did kind of a study on his own to see if the feasibility would be here.” “We really stepped up to city council and the mayor back in 2019. It was passed at a council meeting by city council that they want to support moving our 9 Outdoor Court facility to a year-round facility.”
How has the participation in tennis evolved locally?
“ Our membership base then was a little smaller, as tennis wasn't maybe as mainstream as it is now. We hadn't had the success of our Canadian female and male professional players bringing tennis to the spotlight like recently. These guys really made tennis mainstream in Canada and with that we've seen an increase in local player numbers. We tried to do better programming and and do more things on our end to keep it cost-effective and inclusive.”
“ We saw our numbers blossom last year to an outdoor membership of 550 people. This year, even with with a cold spring we're at 495 and that includes 434 year-round members. There were 61 outdoor only members who just wanna play outside. It's great as our target is for 480 to 500 members.”
So you began actively working on getting indoor tennis here and how did that progress?
“ The dome was erected December 6, 2025. It took a little while to meet code so we actually opened March 7,2026. Once the dome went up they had to hang all the lighting that you see, put the insulation inside etc. so that took the bubble manufacturer about three weeks to do.
“ They turned it over to us and Tom Jones still had to do electrical work and the building we call the breezeway joining between the office and the bubble. We still have some fencing and a little bit of landscaping to complete."
It really was team effort to get to this stage?
“ The Indoor Committee Team and the Board of Directors of our organization played a big role in achieving the Rogers Tennis Dome here. I'm really proud of all the work everyone put in as well as the sponsors and other funders- the City of Thunder Bay, NOHC, Fednor, the CEDC, Tennis Canada and Rogers, the list goes on.”
“ We are a not for profit, an entity that pays expenses from revenues from court fees, membership etc,. We pay the electricity, gas bill, water, staffing, and everything.”
How does it feel now that the Rogers Tennis Dome is open?
“ We're just like wow, how did we get this facility. I mean you don't even see this in Toronto- with the combination of outdoor and indoor courts. What is special is it's gonna be a year round facility- so when we have thunderstorms, when we have really windy days, cold days or rainy days we still get to play every day. We were able to get enough money to actually build six brand new indoor courts and just have this totally incredible amazing facility here.”
“To put it in perspective the National Tennis Centre in Toronto has 16 courts and the Thunder Bay Tennis Centre now has 15 courts in total. If you take away that big beautiful stadium that you see on TV there we were basically the national centre in Thunder Bay.”
You have adedicated pickleball area as well?
“ We added a pickleball area with 4 courts so that's impressive. We have 400 registered Pickleball users which is excellent” “Pickleball is a great game. It's like kind of a combination of mini tennis with a wiffle ball and a paddle. What's good about pickleball is the learning curve is very short. It's so much easier for people to pick up than tennis. One of the big things with tennis and other sports is where there's a greater distance involved, say like throwing a football 30 yards to try to catch. If you and I throw a football from 5 feet away it's pretty easy to catch but if someone throws over 30 yards away it's not so easy anymore. It's the distance right, so the shorter court in the pickle ball in my opinion makes the learning curve a little bit easier.”
I think you still love tennis today as you did as a kid growing up?
“ I mean tennis becomes a lifestyle, a part of your life and that's what draws everyone into this. You make good friendships in an activity like playing tennis. It's also like going on the treadmill getting exercise, but it's fun. We don't go on the treadmill. We go play tennis.”
