CFL stadium fare has changed dramatically
We rank our favourite Canadian Football League stadiums
By Mike Beamish, Vancouver Sun August 6, 2015
VANCOUVER — With three new or refurbished stadiums opening in the past couple of years and a fourth about to be completed, the rankings of our favourite Canadian Football League stadiums have changed dramatically, too. Overall impressiveness is determined by several criteria. Size, ambience, creature comforts, aesthetics, food …and, of course, convenience of coverage from the press-box perch.
1. INVESTORS GROUP FIELD (WINNIPEG)
"It's a very loud place, hard for a visiting team to communicate," says B.C. Lions head coach Jeff Tedford. "I thought it sounded more like 60,000." With its undulating, corrugated metal roof covering most of the stadium's 33,500 seats, IGF is the ideal size for a CFL ballpark. It has vaulted Winnipeg from worst (good riddance, Canad Inns Stadium) to first among the league's stadiums. Equal-opportunity washrooms (14 for each gender) with separate entrances and exits ensure flow-through traffic from the rum huts and vodka bars on the concourse level, where fans can view the game, on the field or from one of 250 TV monitors, while plunking down $12 for a 16-oz. cup of premium beer.
Downside: Stadium is a long hike from Portage Avenue and traffic snarls on the way to the game are a regular occurrence.
2. TD PLACE STADIUM (OTTAWA)
Part of the $450-million Lansdowne Park restaurant, shopping and residential project south of the downtown core, TD Place Stadium trumps every other CFL outdoor venue for its neighbourhood vibe. Outside its doors are a host of trendy bars and restaurants for pre- and post-game noshing and imbibing. Inside the young, urban crowd seems bent on having a good time (not necessarily hung up on watching a good football game). Crowd circulation has been criticized for its lack of flow, however, especially when fans try to access concessions and rest rooms. The Ottawa Citizen's RedBlacks beat writer, Gord Holder, gives the media facilities a similar "mixed review." Good sight lines a plus.
Downside: Limited washrooms and congested elevators (locker room better accessed through the stairwells) are minuses.
3. TIM HORTONS FIELD (HAMILTON)
Pivoted 90 degrees to afford better sight lines and protection from the blustery winds that blow off Lake Ontario and Burlington Bay, Tim Hortons Field has risen phoenix-like from the footprint of old Ivor Wynne Stadium to provide Hamiltonians with unimagined luxury: Minimum 19-inch-wide seats, ranging to 21 inches, with armrests and cupholders, a far cry from the bench seating that was a throwback to football's prehistoric past. "It's also all about the quality of the bathrooms, too," says Ticats reporter Carol Phillips, recalling that the women's bathroom in the press box at Ivor Wynne could never be locked, resulting in some embarrassing trips to the biffy.
Downsides: Concession food is unimaginative and not cheap; better bring binoculars when heading to the upper-stratosphere press box.
4. BC PLACE STADIUM (VANCOUVER)
Given a half-billion-dollar facelift at public expense, many times the original estimate, the appeal and attraction of BC Place varies wildly, depending on whether you're a fed-up provincial taxpayer or an enthralled out-of-town visitor raving about the innovative concession food, the iconic LED windows and the giant JumboTron. "I personally love covering games at BC Place," says CFL writer Kirk Penton of the Winnipeg Sun. "The view from the press box is the best in the league — by a mile.”
Downsides: Nonetheless, the stadium's biggest failing is its sheer size — 54,500 seats. Lacking both intimacy, fans and, this season, a half-time show beyond the appearance of three talking heads, the esprit under the retractable-roofed stadium is found wanting. It doesn't even have a catchy nickname.
5. PERCIVAL MOLSON STADIUM (MONTREAL)
The most worshipped cathedrals of sport blend tradition with some cutting-edge amenities (Soldier Field, Wrigley Field in Chicago). As such, Molson Stadium, which literally opened 100 years ago, works on one level — the views of downtown Montreal, looking south, and Mount Royal, to the north, are stunning. Wrought-iron fencing and stonework were used to blend seamlessly the old stadium with the expansion on the southside grandstands.
Downsides: For first-time visitors who don’t bring seat cushions or wear Vibram-soled hiking boots, the stadium’s lack of creature comforts can be off-putting. The seating is on benches, with no backs, and the climb to the nose-bleed seats is steep, without railings to cling to. Scary. It's professional football at its most scenic — and its most basic.
6. MOSAIC STADIUM (REGINA)
Broiling in the summer, freezing in the late fall, Roughrider fans have to be as tough as the hardy prairie homesteaders who carved out a living on the grasslands. Prairie madness, once brought on by isolation, has given way to mania for the province's football team. Nobody has more fun at a CFL game than the Melonheads, about to take possession of a new $278-million stadium, just to the west, on Elphinstone Street, when it's finished next year. Fans will take the good memories of Mosaic Stadium with them.
Downsides: The bad ones — long beer lines, sketchy washrooms, the human tide ingressing and egressing up and down labyrinthine ramps — will linger not so much. "There is comfort in visiting Mosaic Stadium (for the tradition)," says Regina Leader-Post sports columnist Rob Vanstone. "But it is simply not a comfortable place to watch a game."
7. COMMONWEALTH STADIUM (EDMONTON)
Albertans know how to stretch a buck. Closing in on 40 years since it opened for the 1978 Commonwealth Games, the expanded and renovated home of the Eskimos is fresh from another rehabilitation and continues to buck the ravages of time and the lethal northern Alberta winters. Commonwealth scores major points for being close to light-rail transit. Any holder of a pre-paid football ticket gets to travel there for free.
Downsides: It takes a good-sized Alberta city, the population of Fort McMurray, to fill it. And with a running track surrounding the field and reminding everyone of the stadium's roots, you can barely make out the players from a long way up. "It's very sterile," says CFL writer Frank Zicarelli of the Toronto Sun. "And I hate the enclosed press box."
8. McMAHON STADIUM (CALGARY)
Calgary is the undisputed tailgating champion of the CFL, although the parking lot action at Fort Whoop-Up can resemble an Arctic street fair when the thermometer tumbles.
Downsides: McMahon’s usefulness as a football stadium (it’s 55 years old and shows every one of those years) also leaves us cold. “Not only does it look like a dinosaur (her daughter is a paleontologist), it has that feel as well,” says Rita Mingo of the Calgary Herald. “The concourse is a cold, grey shell, and the bathroom facilities are horrible.”
9. ROGERS CENTRE (TORONTO)
Since SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) opened in 1989, the 3.25-hectare roof on the mammoth concrete and steel structure has never failed to impress. It has continued to open and shut on command throughout is 26-year history.
Downsides: Still, the staging of CFL games, in a cavernous expanse designed for baseball, has been a problematic proposition since Day 1. "Zero atmosphere and it looks empty with 20,000 people in it," says Chris O'Leary, who covers the Eskimos for the Edmonton Journal. After years of trying valiantly to create a fan experience — kudos to the kickin' pep band, the Argonotes — the football team hopes a move to BMO Field next season, under the MLSE banner, can be its salvation.
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