Blue tankers swim at Huron high school

There's no place like home, but no matter how hard or often the Michigan's men's swimming and diving team's seniors click their heels, they'll never make it back to their home pool in time.

Canaham Natatorium, the site for its home meets, is in the process of major renovation to the roof, and has remained unused by the swimming and diving teams the previous ten months.

So the men's and women's swimming and diving teams has had to relocate all of their home meets to the pool at Ann Arbor's Huron High School.

"We're going to be at an unknown pool ... so we're going to be at a (neutral) site," Michigan men's swimming coach Jon Urbanchek said. "Not being home is not going to be an advantage to us."

Not that Michigan has to worry that much about losing its advantage. The Wolverines still remain one of the premier swimming and diving programs in the nation despite being deprived the home-pool advantage.

PHOTOG/Daily And here is a cutline for after the streamer. This should be two lines long as well, and should tell a bit about the photo, the people in it, and all that fun stuff.

Urbanchek seemed to be taking the displacement in stride.

"It's better than not swimming at all," Urbanchek said. "We've bared this for ten months now. I hope we can go one more week."

The renovation is nearly complete and if everything goes according to schedule, the team should be practicing at Canaham before the season comes to a close.

Urbanchek seemed positive about the work being done on the Natatorium.

"I see at least twenty people working out there, running around painting, touch up, scaffolding," Ubanchek said. "In my personal opinion, I'd say we're two weeks away from actually jumping in."

"We're at the edge of breaking in the new pool," Urbanchek said. "We're close."

However, close doesn't quite cut it for seniors swimmers Jeff Flermoen, Tom Malchow, Joe Palmer, Andy Potts, John Reich, David Stephens, and senior diver Brett Wilmot.

"The graduating seniors won't have a chance to plunge into our pool unfortunately," Urbanchek said.

That might considered a letdown for not only this year's seniors, but also their fans, considering how well some of them are doing this season.

Malchow has been the most impressive thus far, earning NCAA consideration times in the 200 and 500 freestyle and 200 butterfly.

Wilmot is also having a stellar season. He has earned 1 and 3 meter NCAA qualification scores during the fall season alone, which is usually reserved for training for the winter season.

The lack of a home pool hasn't affected the teams performance or failed to stop the regular run-of-the-mill activities, which includes senior weekend and the Michigan Open.

But both activities will be held at Huron's pool.

The Michigan Open will take place Feb. 12-14, and senior weekend will be on Friday and Saturday when the Wolverines take on Penn State and Purdue.

"It'll be a great senior's weekend, but unfortunately we'll have to look at (our) pool from outside the window," Urbanchek said.

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