CANAdian pools

• Montreal 
  Pool: Garfield Weston Pool at McGill University 
  Rating: B- 
  The The Good News: Les lifeguardes parlez anglais. 25 yards, lane ropes, kickboards, pull buoys. It's only five dollars Canadian (twenty five cents American) to get in. 
  The Bad News: Just five lanes, no pace clocks and no gutters whatsoever. Oh, and the showers... 
  Details: I have to conclude that Montreal was settled by Lilliputians, and that's why when I angled the shower head all the way up, it still hit me in the stomach. I had to squat to rinse the conditioner out of my hair. It was just as if I were getting a second cavity search at customs. The pool is open from 11:30 to 3:30, M-F and McGill has another pool at their Curry Gym open in weekends. The staff is super nice. 
  
  
• Pool: YMCA Guy Favreau
  SGOL Link 
  Rating: B -
  The The Good News: 25 yards, free with a Y card, paceclocks, kickboards. 
  The Bad News: Four lanes, two lane ropes. 
  Details: Well, I had one day to try out the Y pool before my flight home, and I lost my suit; I had to skip my Saturday workout. (You should have seen me pretend to be pissed, I was quite convincing). Anyway, as a service to my page fans, I did pop in for a quick visual inspection. The water looked cold, the lifeguard appeared bored and a lane was empty. 
  The Piscine Olympique, (the Olympic Pool for you unilingual American types), is right next to a Metro station. I didn't have time to check it out, as I was up drinking and schmoozing with industry types all night, every night. There is a Master's team there but, as usual, their workouts are six hours before I like to drag myself out of bed.
  
  
• Pool: YMCA Hochelaga-Maisonneuve 
  SGOL Link 
  Rating: B++ 
  The The Good News: 25 meters, paceclocks, kickboards. 
  The Bad News: Parlez-vous Fancais? Non? Americain stupide! 
  Details: It's new, it's downtown, it's walking distance from my hotel. The lifeguards make sure you take a shower first and they check to make sure your shoes are pool-deck friendly. The locker rooms are clean. No complaints here, except due to the exchange rate, the calories you burn in Canada are worth just 60% of the calories you burn in the US. Thank you, I'll be here all week. 
  
  
• Toronto 
  Pool: North York YMCA 
  Rating: A- 
  The Good News: 25 meters, cool water, six lanes, most of them roped, indoors, kickboards. Two synched paceclocks and liberal hours, 10 am to 4 pm. 
  The Bad News: Hmmm, can't think of any. 
  Details: What a great YMCA system. Midwest, take note! The North York Y has two pools, one for lappers and the other for bouncers. The showers, oh the showers! Hot water and lots of it, my friends. The shallow end's paceclock had four multi-colored arms, so I took advantage of the opportunity to leave on the green top, pretend to forget which color I left on, and then decide it must have been the blue top. This is how I did 40 x 50's @ 45, on the minute. All pools should use clocks with built-in interval cheaters!

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