A walk around the Sports Hub

I was invited to a Sports Hub tour last weekend and it was pretty informative and yesss much potential fun.

By the way, the easiest way is to drop off at Stadium MRT. Once out of there, you will have the mall, Kallang Wave to your right. And the visitor’s centre for the Sports Hub is in the building to the left, after the sports library.

I assure you, it just hit me why the mall is called Kallang Wave. AUGGH.

Anyway, Calvin (or do I spell it as Kelvin?) and Jennifer were the guides for our group. Here’s Calvin starting off the tour. They’re both really nice by the way.

Anyway, what lies within Kallang Wave? It’s a rock wall! At the moment, it’s the tallest rock wall in Singapore. Yes, you can climb it. You just have to book through Climb Central.

Besides this rock wall, it’s an actual mall with food and fashion and HAH, it has actually pretty good stores too even Daiso.

Go up to the third floor and you’re up at the promenade. You’re up where the stadium gates are. Fun fact, see where I drew ‘b’ there? The tracks surrounding the stadium is 888 metres.

And you see in ‘a’? Well, past a towards the railings too, that area is actually free for anyone to use.

Like really.

The running tracks is for the public and the whole space there is for you to do whatever you want because this sports hub is for the community.

Of course, if there’s an event happening you probably don’t want to be there.

But basically, you know like how people used to dance around at the basement of Esplanade or the top floors of Scape? You can do that here too!

We got into the stadium since it was a public day, so hurray on that.

The cool thing about the new seats are that it is cool.

When there is an event happening in the stadium, the area will be cooled down to 23 degrees celcius and if you look below your seats, there is a VENT and from this vent the cool air will waft out from the chillers.

It’s all really cool.

Of course since this wasn’t an event day, the stadium wasn’t cooled down but they did close the ‘shutters’ for the roof! It takes around 20 minutes for the shutters to fully open or close by the way.

Do check the Sports Hub website because on some family days you can go onto the track and run for free or check out the inside area.

I just learned during the tour there was such thing as Experience Sports. Meaning, FREE SPORTS ACTIVITIES for you to try out.

There was fencing and then I screamed (internally) because it was fully booked already.

And then there’s also canoeing, speedminton plus much more. You just have to check on their website or at their booth in the sports hub (their webpage will tell you where their booth are on weekends).

I do wish there was an online newsletter or something that could tell me when it happens before the month, unless I missed out the link on their website because I really, really want to try out fencing whenever it comes again.

Anywhoo, this is one of the halls in there for rental. It’s also a multipurpose hall and on the right, those are stackable seats. Pull them out and audiences can watch a ball game.

All the facilities there in the halls, just go online to book it.

And see here, badminton courts… IN AIR CON. So lovely. There’s lockers on the side too and for each hall, there are lockers and nearby shower facilities.

We wandered outside as our tourguide led us towards the water sports centre. Besides the places you have to book, there are free non-bookable ones like the skatepark on the 3rd level and some basketball courts there too. That one though, you have to book like all other basketball courts to make sure you have a time slot and so people don’t really hog it. The outdoor ones are free to book.

This volleyball one is free too and is pretty much first come first serve.

GET THE PUN?

There’s a swimming pool but we didn’t get to see it since it was booked by the swimmers for a competition and thus it was confidential. The training pool is available for everyone to use though and as always, check online to see if anyone is using it.

And our last stop was the Water Sports Centre where you could rent out boats. Even if you don’t have certification, you can rent a boat for some hours or the whole day.

It’s actually ‘below’ and nearer to the river so if you’re trying to find it, just walk straight all the way from the Stadium station to the end.

Just don’t go off into the water?!

BUT YES. For those certified canoers, they can rent out some other special boats. For non-certified people like me, we can rent the open top ones and don’t worry, the staff there will just give a small briefing on how to paddle around too.

It closes at 7pm for safety because you don’t want to paddle around in the dark.

My take on the whole sports hub?

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THE FREE SPORTS THING. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I really hope there’s a button somewhere to sign up newsletter and I just missed it but will look later.

Nevermind, now I know I can go try. Plus, I do want to go boating. Maybe capture some footage from a boat somehow, take pictures because the place is scenic. Just maybe not at noon since that is probably the hottest hour.

I played giant chess inside the Sports Library too. There’s also x-box kinect in there for you to play besides the sports related books.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Sports Library is by Civica and not our National Library Board. DO NOT RETURN your NLB books there. They’re TWO different libraries ok?

Oh and I think there’s another giant chess set somewhere on top too but meh, this giant chess set was inside the cooling library so yay.

Thanks Sports Hub for inviting me to the tour, it was great and your staff were very good too!

And well the facilities are going to be totally awesome for both players and audiences for future sport events so you readers out there, just go and check it out!