With a break of 15 days without a home game, the Impact is taking the opportunity to change the playing surface at Stade Saputo.

Work literally started minutes after the final whistle of the game versus CD Heredia Tuesday night.

“It’s a good time to replace the grass when looking at our scheduled and the weather,” explained executive vice-president Richard Legendre. “There have been a number of activities held on the field over the last few months and the condition of the grass degraded.”

The new, natural surface, which is again Kentucky Bluegrass (dwarf), will be in place as of Friday, allowing for a two week period before the team’s next home game.

Dissimilar to the grass originally put in place on June 16, 2012, the new grass surface was cultivated in sand, the same infrastructure that exists at Stade Saputo. Therefore, the general state of the grass will be improved.

After studying all options, the organization decided against a heating system under the field.

“With the major costs of that system, higher than we had anticipated, we decided to go ahead simply with changing the grass surface,” added Richard Legendre. “After further analysis, we realized that a heating system would not guarantee that we’d be able to play a game on the same day as a snow storm similar to the one we had on April 13.”

A side note, in most stadiums, natural playing surfaces are changed every three to four years.