It is not just athletes from Bermuda who have been taking advantage of the facilities at the National Sports Centre this week.

While the Alvernia University team were giving the Bermuda national squad a couple of tough games on the hockey field, a happy band of 11 swimmers from Canada were getting some miles in the pool.

Club de Natation Saint-Laurent, from Montreal, chose Bermuda as the place to go for some preseason training, and swimming coach Felix Gosselin is delighted with the choice.

“I’ve never been to an island like this before and we’ve loved our stay here,” Gosselin said.

“Everybody’s been super nice, super accommodating and super hospitable. The facility is fantastic and we rarely get to swim outdoors at home.

“We just looked around for long-course pools in the south and we came across Bermuda. I knew Bermuda has some warmth and niceness to it and we reached out to the National Sports Centre to see if they could host us.

“It was one of the only venues that got back to us with availability and the Bermuda Tourism Authority were so accommodating and helped us out really well.”

The club brought swimmers between the ages of 14 to 18 as they gear up for their season.

“We’re from the province of Quebec and these athletes will be going to the provincial championships,” Gosselin said.

“We have tiers to those events, but some of them will be going to the higher-level provincial championships and are working for that. All the guys are really enjoying their time and trying to do their best to balance it not being a vacation and being more for training.

“But, of course, we want them to enjoy the island as much as we can. We’ve done a quick two-hour tour with one of the taxi drivers and tomorrow afternoon we will have some time off as well.”

Given Canada’s deteriorating diplomatic relationship with the United States under the Trump administration, Bermuda is well positioned to capture the tourist dollar from that country. This team, staying at Grotto Bay Hotel, will be going home to spread the word at what the island has to offer.

“I would 100 per cent recommend people back home to come to Bermuda,” Gosselin said.

“Cost-wise, we’ve had to really bargain and negotiate a little bit because it is expensive to come out here and we understand why with the need for everything to be imported and the fact it is a very small island.

“Thankfully, Bermuda Tourism Authority helped to connect us with the right people to try and bring the cost down, and we were lucky to bring a big enough group to spread the cost out a little bit.

“We were also given this pool space for free, which is great. We were very fortunate with that because a big cost when you’re travelling to other locations is rental of a pool space, which can go up as high as $100 an hour for the lanes that you're trying to get.

“To get help with that was great, and we’ve had such an amazing time that I can’t wait to come back.”