I went to one of the venues on our bucket list last Friday, built right next door to what a few of us call "Cocaine Castle" - the big mound of salt on Totara St.
It fitted in perfectly with the theme of the Friday before, when we were entertained by Greg "Fat Cat" Richie at the annual Police Charity Auction.
Not the cocaine - Richie was a pie man - but the cricket was served up sensationally last Friday.
Cricket strikes a chord in Tauranga, and to watch the Black Caps on our own purpose-built oval is a dream come true.
I don't know who made this happen but, whoever you are, top effort team.
The park was perfect and the Carrus Pavilion equal to anything at Eden Park or Lords.
As for the boys with the black caps trying to tonk a half-decent innings, perhaps you could flip the batting order upside down fellas, as your tail wagged the disastrous dog of your openers. And, if the talented but tempestuous Jessie Ryder does not know what cap he wants to wear, then give him the red light and find someone who sees pride and privilege of wearing the silver fern on their potae (hat).
Sport breeds pride in a province, be it with the bat or the ball. You may not be able to show the returns a successful team and its stadium brings to the bottom line of a council's balance sheet, but there is no question that it does.
Just ask Taranaki, with its Yarrow Stadium or Hawke's Bay with its Mclean Park.
So, we have made a start with our first-class Bay Oval at Blake Park. Now let's light it up for night games.
Sometimes it only seems like yesterday when we would line up for after-school athletics on the same park, with Bert and Daphne Friis sending us off down the neatly mown lanes to the slap of the starter's blocks.
I bet Bert and my old Mountie rugby coaches Syd Maxwell, Coozer Carson, Dan Greany. Tusky and Hank Luke would love to see what's happening now at Blake Park, and could the vision Tusky (Bruce Matushcka) had for a stadium one day come true, right next door to the cricket oval?
Look how the mighty 'Naki lifts for their province. If you drill down to their success you will find they have recruited from within their own backyard a development team, played in their own purpose-built stadium, and built a following that the Steamers and their management should surely follow if we want to lift us from the bottom of the rugby ladder.
Wish lists that turn into bucket lists can be cornerstones of communities, with or without the free ice creams on Fridays, if they are seen as legacies for future generations and not as nooses for the now and nay generation.
But they can only happen when the community gets behind them.
We have some clever and cashed-up visionary leaders, who understand the meaning of mana and the currency of kindness as being the bottom line we can measure success with.
Let's not pull up stumps and rest on our cricket laurels. Let's push the boundaries to include Blake Park, across the road from the Bay Oval, and bring Bruce's dream of a NPC class stadium to sit alongside our first-class cricket oval.
How's that?!
• Tommy Kapai is a Tauranga author and writer.
broblack@xtra.co.nz
