Lansdowne Park Redevelopment Phase 1 | Completed

[kwoldtimer]

Yes, definitely stop in at the Royal Oak in the Glebe for a pint before the game ........

[ars]

Originally Posted by JFFournier

From that angle, it might also be because it appears to stop quite suddenly at the ends. Perhaps if the bottom boards were longer then they got gradually shorter as you got to the top it might look more finished. As it is, you almost wonder if there aren't end pieces missing.

Hmmmm that's very true. It's almost as if the veil was underdesigned.

Oh well, I'll wait till everything is finished before coming to a final conclusion on it

[Sven Izhoungrie]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Yes, definitely stop in at the Royal Oak in the Glebe for a pint before the game ........

P&Q! Pints and Quarts!

Two years ago though it would have been the Oak.

[Sven Izhoungrie]

And the traffic doesn't seem so bad at all. At least right now.

Anyone else there? I was too late to get RedBlacks tickets, but I bought Fury tickets for Sunday's game.

[Le-TanK-]

Is there still a movie theatre going to be there?

[nredding]

I live in the Glebe about a 15 minutes walk from Lansdowne. It's 7:20 pm and there are fewer cars parked on my street than usual, so I guess everyone took the bus.

[Fatty McButterpants]

With the stands full of people, there is absolutely no discernible difference between the north side from the 1960s, 70s, 80s & 90s and today's "refurbished" north side. Not on TV anyway. Every time the camera pans over to the north side, I cringe. Such a shame. The novelty of this mess will be wearing off very very quickly. You can bank on it. 8th best stadium in the CFL. Will be 9th after Calgary builds one. Shame.

[EdFromOttawa]

Originally Posted by Fatty McButterpants

With the stands full of people, there is absolutely no discernible difference between the north side from the 1960s, 70s, 80s & 90s and today's "refurbished" north side. Not on TV anyway. Every time the camera pans over to the north side, I cringe. Such a shame. The novelty of this mess will be wearing off very very quickly. You can bank on it. 8th best stadium in the CFL. Will be 9th after Calgary builds one. Shame.

Hmmm that's strange. Every single other opinion I've heard except yours praises the stadium as one of the jewels of the CFL. The TSN panel has now called it 'beautiful' and 'impressive' at least a dozen times.

Looks like noone's buying into your bs.

[rocketphish]

REDBLACKS WIN HOME OPENER 18-17 OVER ARGONAUTS

The Canadian Press,
7/18/2014 10:13:40 PM

OTTAWA -- Brett Maher's 23-yard field goal with 28 seconds remaining earned the expansion Ottawa Redblacks a historic 18-17 home win over the Toronto Argonauts on Friday night.

Maher's boot, his sixth of the game, came after Swayze Waters connected from 46 yards out to put Toronto ahead 17-15 with 1:33 remaining. It looked like the Argos (1-3) would spoil the party for a TD Place Stadium sellout of 24,000, which included Prime Minister Stephen Harper and explained the presence of sharpshooters on the opposite roofs of the facility.

But Ottawa quarterback Henry Burris calmly moved the Redblacks (1-2) downfield to set up Maher's game-winning boot in what was anything but just another football game. It marked marked the first time since November 2005 that Ottawa had hosted a CFL regular-season game and the city hasn't celebrated a Grey Cup championship since 1976.

And there certainly was a party atmosphere in the air, with many fans standing and grooving to the tunes during timeouts. The Redblacks' home opener was much anticipated in the Canadian capital, with supporters proudly sporting their colours this week and turning out in droves for the various pre-game festivities and pep rallies.

Thousands entered TD Place Stadium three hours before the start of the contest to participate in the tailgating. And once fans were allowed to settle into their seats, those on the south side of the stadium resumed the longstanding tradition of chanting "North Side Sucks." However, the entire gathering -- most of which was clad in red -- was on its feet as one, loudly cheering the Redblacks as they took to the field for the pre-game introductions.

And although both offences were inconsistent for much of the night, the Ottawa faithful saw an entertaining finish as Maher's 48-yard field goal at 9:53 of the fourth put the Redblacks ahead 15-14 after Toronto took a 14-12 advantage on Ricky Ray's 20-yard TD strike to Darvin Adams just 43 seconds into the quarter.

That was Toronto's first TD in eight quarters, dating back to the fourth quarter of its 48-15 home win over Saskatchewan on July 5. The Argos were minus veterans Chad Owens (foot), Andre Durie (clavicle) and Jason Barnes (knee), their top three receivers.

The Redblacks also became the first Ottawa team to start off with a home regular-season victory.

Burris also improved to 18-11 in career head-to-head matchups versus Ray, who suffered his first loss in six career games against Ottawa. Burris improved to 12-13 all-time versus Toronto.

Waters booted two field goals, a single and convert.

Maher's 23-yard field goal at 14:56 of the second quarter earned Ottawa a 9-7 lead in a lacklustre opening half offensively as the kickers accounted for all the scoring. Both offences came close to TDs as Ray underthrew a wide-open John Chiles in the endzone in the first before a streaking Kierrie Johnson got behind Toronto's secondary but had Burris's nicely thrown pass go off his outstretched hands.

But both offences lacked consistency and finish as Burris , who got little help from his offensive line, was 7-of-12 passing for 75 yards and Ray completed 9-of-16 attempts for 127 yards, but 45 yards came on one completion.

For the second time this year, Toronto was victimized by a fake punt that went for a first down. Maher scampered 15 yards on third-and-10 to keep a drive alive in the second that he ultimately capped with a 29-yard field goal at 6:24 to put Ottawa ahead 6-3.

NOTES: In their final regular-season game, the Renegades beat Toronto 27-17 on Nov. 5, 2005. Renegades head coach Joe Paopao wore a Hawaiian short on the sidelines, as did his coaching staff and the club's football operations department. Following the game, Paopao threw his shirt into the stands . . Burris came into the game needing 65 yards rushing to move ahead of former Rough Riders star Russ Jackson and into fourth in all-time rushing yards by a quarterback. Jackson has 5,122 yards. Retired star Damon Allen, who played for both Ottawa and Toronto over his illustrious career, holds the league record with 11,920 yards.

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=457467

[eternallyme]

It seems like a weird mixture...half of it is a new stadium (the south side is all new), half of it is a 1960s era stadium (the north side). They would have had to destroy and build from scratch the Civic Centre (now TD Place Arena) in order to have the stadium all new, given the makeup of the facility.

9th best after Calgary? What about Rogers Centre, which is BY FAR the worst place to watch a CFL game.

[EdFromOttawa]

Some cool shots from tonight's game. TD Place bringing Lansdowne back to life!

[JFFournier]

Wow, those are great shots...

[phil235]

Originally Posted by nredding

I live in the Glebe about a 15 minutes walk from Lansdowne. It's 7:20 pm and there are fewer cars parked on my street than usual, so I guess everyone took the bus.

I saw the same thing. Fewer cars parked on the side streets, and way less traffic on Bank St. The buses were sailing down Bank, which pretty much never happens on a normal Friday night.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Fatty McButterpants

With the stands full of people, there is absolutely no discernible difference between the north side from the 1960s, 70s, 80s & 90s and today's "refurbished" north side. Not on TV anyway. Every time the camera pans over to the north side, I cringe. Such a shame. The novelty of this mess will be wearing off very very quickly. You can bank on it. 8th best stadium in the CFL. Will be 9th after Calgary builds one. Shame.

You don't even come close to cracking the top 8 posters on this board.

[eemy]

What was the situation with the field lines? Did the soccer lines end up being removed for the game, or was it a hybrid field?

[EdFromOttawa]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

What was the situation with the field lines? Did the soccer lines end up being removed for the game, or was it a hybrid field?

Soccer lines were removed. On Sunday for the Fury game the football lines will be removed in favour of soccer ones.

This fact has been reiterated over and over again for the past 6 months.

[kwoldtimer]

So, what's the post-game situation? Is the Glebe still standing?

[Horus]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

What was the situation with the field lines? Did the soccer lines end up being removed for the game, or was it a hybrid field?

The soccer lines were removed, but their location was still visible. They probably can't get them 100% off the field. No biggie. I hope the soccer guys don't whine about it.

I was at the game and had a generally good experience. I'd never attended a game at Lansdowne before this, so I have no sense of what it was like in the past.

A few comments:
- Some PA system issues early on resulted in the National Anthem starting, seemingly unannounced, while the crowd was in full "Let's Go REDBLACKS" mode.
- Concession lines were loooooong. I was in the North Side stands and the lines for concessions on both the upper and lower concourses were very long...more so on the lower concourse than the upper. They may want to consider opening all concession outlets in the lower concourse (those on the other side of the hockey rink) to balance the crowds.
- Reports of problems in the washrooms (flooding, significant messiness, etc...). Didn't see them firsthand, so I really can't comment.
- Leaving the stadium was a relatively orderly and calm affair. There is a bit of a bottleneck to get out to Bank St via the passage between the future condo and retail/office building. You have to walk under the scoreboard, which is actually kind of cool, but then funnel out to a narrow Bank St sidewalk. Lots of Ottawa cops out there to keep people from flooding the street and generally keeping things moving.
- I took transit and shuttle service to the game. Lots of support from gameday staff and Ottawa police to keep the shuttles moving and traffic flowing. There was quite a line of cars extending up Bronson from Lakeside, but I don't really know if that is that much different from a 'normal' rush hour time.
- Seating in the North Grandstand was reasonably comfortable and spacious. I'm a bigger guy, and was seated next to some equally larger people, and had no problem with maintaining comfortable personal boundaries or sufficient leg/knee room. There are some problems inherent in the North side design that are unavoidable without a major rework - such as the number of seats between aisles - but that's part of football. The seats themselves are a contoured, moulded plastic with metal frame support. It may remain to be seen how well they hold up to repeated or 'aggressive' use by bigger fans over time.
- Lots of tvs in the concourse on the North Side, so that while you're in line for the concessions, you can still keep tabs on the game. Compromises, I guess.

I'll try and get some photos up soon.

[ryan1]

Here is a great shot from aerialphotographs.ca.

[Cre47]

An article from Le Droit mentionned that the fears of traffic that the Glebites were fearing did not materialize - okay granted it is a 24000-seat event. Transit was apparently pretty fast (though save maybe the trips that came from Labrosse Station in Gatineau that took 50 minutes). As I was in Kanata (which apparently it took 30 minutes only from there to TD) last night, there were OC Transpo staff at Terry Fox and Eagleson Stations that were on site as well (where the 454 runs). At Bayview there were about 25+ articulated buses laying-up