Stadiums and Arenas of Canada

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Dalreg

Quite able to fit a CFL field in there. I'll bet it happens before the end of this decade. Football and soccer will be played in the same stadium in Toronto.

End of the decade? Could be the end of next year.

[craner]

In that picture of BC Place is the veil above the lower bowl made from pieces of the old roof?

[craner]

Originally Posted by osmo

MLSE and the Argos will be too cheap to build a roll system in which they place down new sod for each game. In the States for places such as Cowboys Stadium when they host soccer they simply just lay down grass. This costs a good bit of money but to them they are willing to pay the price, but It's hard to justify paying $100,000 for new sod each home game for just the Argos. This is what they do all the time in the States and with Canada's thrifty culture towards sports facilities it has not caught on to the trend.

An example is during Grey Cups the league is to cheap to lay down new turf and just does a bad job doing a paint job versus the NFL and NCAA that lays down new turf every time for any big time game. That is the only solution I can see with the grass for MLSE. He is trolling about the paint, it's never 100% perfect. "Recovery" just comes from laying new sod in patches. You can't fix major ruts and wear in just one week, you patch it with new stuff and blend it in.

There are no CFL stadiums left with natural turf so laying down new turf for Grey Cups is a moot point. Even if there were natural grass stadiums it would be ridiculous to replace the turf for every game IMO.
BTW - Commonwealth in Edmonton was the last CFL stadium to have natural grass,

[kevinbottawa]

Here's a video from the City of Ottawa showing the construction of the stadium and surrounding retail/park over the past year and a bit.

• Video Link

[matt602]

From the photo on the last page, BMO Field would actually make a pretty decent CFL stadium. Just a re-jigging of the North and South stands would be required, probably throw some additional seating in there on the South side, North side doesn't have much more room up to the road. Maybe some temp seats, thats about it. I think it would be one of the more intimate venues in the league given it's size.

[craner]

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot

Here's a CFL field overlaid on BMO Field.

I didn't realize the west side of BMO had an upper deck. Is the plan to do the same thing on the east side as part of the expansion?

[craner]

^^Very cool video of Lansdowne transformation.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

Here's a video from the City of Ottawa showing the construction of the stadium and surrounding retail/park over the past year and a bit.

Nice.

Looking at the "before and after" shots toward the end of the video, I didn't realize that there would be so much more green space. I knew there would be some, based on some of the images I've seen, but that's a substantial change on the east side of the park.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Between Jays fans and TFC fans, I don't think there is city on earth whose fans are more obsessed with playing surfaces than Toronto's.

"Either the team plays on a Barlexus II-Quickstart Fescue-Ryegrass hybrid cultivar or I'm cancelling my season tickets!!"

Jays' fans want grass because the oranisation wants it. The organisation wants it because players hate artificial turf. Players hate turf because it's hard to play on and screws their knees and backs.

Let's move on from the topic. There are many completely valid reasons for wanting a baseball-only facility with natural grass.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Between Jays fans and TFC fans, I don't think there is city on earth whose fans are more obsessed with playing surfaces than Toronto's.

No city in Europe would have their soccer team play on anything but grass. If they had Canadian football teams, you can bet your bottom dollar they'd want synthetic unless they were wealthy enough to maintain a grass surface. US MLB teams have almost all switched back to grass due to fan/player revolt. This is hardly a Toronto phenomenon.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot

I amended the drawing above to show the "buffer zone" required around the edge of the CFL playing surface.

Great job. If MLSE is intent on making this a 30,000 seater that can one day move to a 40,000 seater and spend quite heavily like they've indicated I'd propose the following with the reasons why:

The west stands are stuck at 2 tiers because they built right out to the lot line. They'll need 3 tiers on each side to get to 40,000 so that needs to be the starting point for any re-design.

If one keeps the 2 tiers on the west that are currently there, one can only add a 3rd tier if it's sunken. Dig up the field and take down both the east and south stands completely. Only leave the 2 west stands minus the small bits that start to curve around the soccer pitch. Then build a sunken bowl that wraps completely around.

If that requires re-routing Princes' Boulevard a little further south it's well worth the effort. You could get a stadium of 26,000-28,000 this way. To get to roughly 40,000 one could at a later date build the 2nd and 3rd tier on the east side to match what exists on the west side. You'd lose the parking lot on the east side, but if this stadium was ever to be enlarged we all knew that back in 2005.

Very difficult, but one could engineer a system in the sunken bowl that moves the end zones in and out on a track. There would be obvious 'problems' at the corners but surely something workable can be found.

[esquire]

^ BMO could easily be modified to accommodate a CFL field. I suspect that the trick will be to add more of the playing surface to the north. In other words, you might have to make the first 10 rows of the south end retractable seating that gets moved away for football, with the rest of the expanded field added to the north... so essentially the midfield stripe/55 yard line might end up being moved 10 yards north. That might necessitate the reconstruction fo the curved-in seating section in the upper left hand of the stadium, but even that is a relatively minor project in the grand scheme of things.

The dumbest thing about this is that the stadium could have been built to accommodate both sports right from the get-go. Now they'll end up dealing with this headache.

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Nice.

Looking at the "before and after" shots toward the end of the video, I didn't realize that there would be so much more green space. I knew there would be some, based on some of the images I've seen, but that's a substantial change on the east side of the park.

The biggest patch of grass, the Great Lawn, is supposed to be almost the size of the front lawn of Parliament Hill. There will also be a heritage orchard and playground for kids.

[WhipperSnapper]

The stadium was built as a national soccer stadium for the FIFA under 18 tournament. It would of been stupid to design it to include football as the Feds would of likely pulled their sizable contribution. It's still dumb to compromise it's intentions for a rather unpopular sport. Probably can build something much cheaper for football out by York University which will have subway access soon and has an established sports complex.

Originally Posted by esquire

^ BMO could easily be modified to accommodate a CFL field. I suspect that the trick will be to add more of the playing surface to the north. In other words, you might have to make the first 10 rows of the south end retractable seating that gets moved away for football, with the rest of the expanded field added to the north... so essentially the midfield stripe/55 yard line might end up being moved 10 yards north. That might necessitate the reconstruction fo the curved-in seating section in the upper left hand of the stadium, but even that is a relatively minor project in the grand scheme of things.

The dumbest thing about this is that the stadium could have been built to accommodate both sports right from the get-go. Now they'll end up dealing with this headache.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The stadium was built as a national soccer stadium for the FIFA under 18 tournament. It would of been stupid to design it to include football as the Feds would of likely pulled their sizable contribution.

Better read your history as you're not including most of it. And it was the FIFA U20.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

It's still dumb to compromise it's intentions for a rather unpopular sport.

The unpopular sport outdraws basketball and soccer live (attendance per game) and has 7 times the TV audience of either. Soccer and basketball would love to be so unpopular.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by elly63

The unpopular sport outdraws basketball and soccer live (attendance per game) and has 7 times the TV audience of either. Soccer and basketball would love to be so unpopular.

But TFC just signed some has-been who couldn't stick in the Premier league for 10 million dollars! That has to make them a major league entity.

(Have no idea if this guy is worth the dollars or the reason why he is playing here. Just using the same argument that the NFL fan-boys use to put down the CFL)

[elly63]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

(Have no idea if this guy is worth the dollars or the reason why he is playing here.

I think you answered your own question

[esquire]

Originally Posted by whippersnapper

it would of been stupid to design it to include football as the feds would of likely pulled their sizable contribution.

lol

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Is your new stadium planned to be completed by 2017?

Way to tell 'em VANRIDERFAN!!!

And yes Jay in Cowtown, we will have a new stadium in 2017. (And it'll be FIFA-approved as well.)

McMahon's land [for the stadium] was purchased for $1.00!!! (Suddenly McMahon isn't so bad, huh?!!)