Stadiums & Arenas of Canada, Part 3

[Calgarian]

How long of a drive is it from CTC into Ottawa? according to Google maps, it's only 23km to Downtown Ottawa. I thought Kanata was much further out than that...

[cjones2451]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

As far as CFL Stadium being built for Atlantic Schooner's goes, I think The CFL should still award Maritimes a team, have the team split home games between Monctown stadium and an enlarged St Mary's Stadium. Charge full price for half season tickets at each of the venues to make up for the barely half sized venues and if there is a demand for the CFL in the Maritimes it should be obvious early on whether they should go ahead and build a $200 million full sized stadium at some point in the future.

I'm pretty sure Huskies stadium had to tear down some of their stands that were condemned so I am not even sure how many fans they could seat there at this point. I don't think the ownership group is going to put the type of money into it without larger ticket revenue. The CFL can't work like some of the Euro Soccer leagues that have big TV money to support small clubs with 6-10K seating in their stadiums.

[MonctonRad]

Indeed.

Huskies Stadium should be demolished.

Splitting the season between Halifax and Moncton is also a non starter. The cities are about 2 hr 45 min apart, so the season ticket base wouldn't stand for this. The team needs a primary home (although I wouldn't mind if they had one home game per season in Moncton).

[roccerfeller]

Do fans from the Atlantic feel any inter-provincial rivalry for this team would be a factor in support?

Saskatoon may be a similar driving distance to Regina as Moncton is from Halifax, but Saskatoon and Regina are in the same province, whereas in Atlantic Canada you have the Maritimes as well as Newfoundland, all with varying degrees of rivalry (i'm originally from Newfoundland, and I feel we took pride in the distinction from the Maritimes)

I do understand that cities may have their own rivalries which can be comparable (i.e. Saskatoon vs Regina) and thus can play similarly to regional rivalries, but my question to those living there and who would be directly supporting the team is:
Does it make a difference given the inter-provincial distinction?
Or would it be like Saskatchewan?

[MonctonRad]

I think it would have some bearing, yes, but I am uncertain as to how much.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

How long of a drive is it from CTC into Ottawa? according to Google maps, it's only 23km to Downtown Ottawa. I thought Kanata was much further out than that...

Now add traffic.

On a weeknight it's a 40ish minute drive from Downtown to CTC if you're lucky, before you have to worry about parking.

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

Do fans from the Atlantic feel any inter-provincial rivalry for this team would be a factor in support?

Yeah, but it depends on the where and what. There's some animosity between the provinces but we've never had anything on a national scale that represents the region before.

Intraprovincial rivalries are a really big thing, too. Loads of people in Saint John hate Moncton and Fredericton for an endless supply of reasons. Likewise for Halifax and wherever.

[Nouvellecosse]

I'm not aware of Halifax having any intraprovincial rivalries. Other than maybe Dal vs St. Mary's type stuff.

[EpicPonyTime]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Now add traffic.

On a weeknight it's a 40ish minute drive from Downtown to CTC if you're lucky, before you have to worry about parking.

Honestly, if I was from Ottawa the drive wouldn't dissuade me as much as the paid parking would. I can put up with Sask Place's crappy location because at least it doesn't cost anything to park there.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

How long of a drive is it from CTC into Ottawa? according to Google maps, it's only 23km to Downtown Ottawa. I thought Kanata was much further out than that...

Originally Posted by JHikka

Now add traffic.

On a weeknight it's a 40ish minute drive from Downtown to CTC if you're lucky, before you have to worry about parking.

Getting a parking spot can take 20 minutes, getting out can take 40 to 60. So one must plan for a grand total of about 2 to 3 hours in the car. Getting in by bus isn't a whole lot better than by car because they get stuck in the same traffic, but getting out is much quicker since they added a bus only ramp out of the CTC a few years back.


https://twitter.com/CdnTireCtr/statu...30656044666881

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime

Honestly, if I was from Ottawa the drive wouldn't dissuade me as much as the paid parking would. I can put up with Sask Place's crappy location because at least it doesn't cost anything to park there.

Yes, the 20-dollar parking fee (in the middle of nowhere, as the yarn goes) has been a big irritant for Senators fans. I believe they finally cut it down to 12 dollars this season, as a result.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Getting a parking spot can take 20 minutes, getting out can take 40 to 60. So one must plan for a grand total of about 2 to 3 hours in the car. Getting in by bus isn't a whole lot better than by car because they get stuck in the same traffic, but getting out is much quicker since they added a bus only ramp out of the CTC a few years back.


https://twitter.com/CdnTireCtr/statu...30656044666881

I live 35 km door to door from the Canadian Tire Centre. Of those 35 km, just under 30 km are on freeways. And yet if I am going to or from a Senators game, it basically takes an hour and half between the time I leave and the time I arrive on foot at the door of my destination.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I live 35 km door to door from the Canadian Tire Centre. Of those 35 km, just under 30 km are on freeways. And yet if I am going to or from a Senators game, it basically takes an hour and half between the time I leave and the time I arrive on foot at the door of my destination.

To rehash a point - arenas in the boonies tend not to do well. What can you do out in Kanata prior to/after a game?

At least on a transit line or in the city itself, you don't necessarily have to worry about these things, or the downside is mitigated.

For a venue that has only a few special events per year, most people will make the drive. For a venue that is reliant on 40+ games per year, you need to be accessible.

Hence, my assessment of CTC as a 'failure'.

[J.OT13]

To answer the question of what can one do before the game, many restaurants in the Kanata area, and even elsewhere in the city, offer their own bus service to and from NHL games (and maybe other events?) at the CTC. Options after the games are more limited, however.

I think the CTC served us well for the first 20 years or so, but with the Kanata area now having a population of 120,000+, adding to the congestion, we're reaching a breaking point. The anticipation around the downtown arena proposal didn't help. A lot of people, I think, decided to "postpone" their support for the Sens until the team moved. Now that the new arena dream is likely dead, I don't see any way of getting people back to Kanata until maybe the O-Train is extended to the Palladium.

Worth noting that the Province widened the Queensway (417) in Kanata to 10 lanes a few years back, including an HOV lane in each direction. That doesn't help much though because the biggest problem was always getting in and out of the parking lot, and the Queensway reduces to 8 and 6 lanes headed back downtown, which has a funnel effect slowing down traffic even more.

I would say that in 1996, the Palladium it was a workable compromise for a team that could not secure a downtown location. By 2016, the situation stared to fail, despite the best efforts of the team ownership and government (and were talking about the location and transportation issues, not the product on ice).

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm not aware of Halifax having any intraprovincial rivalries. Other than maybe Dal vs St. Mary's type stuff.

The rivalries tend to be specific. It would be hard for there to be a rivalry of the Atlantic Schooners vs. a nonexistent team elsewhere in the region. If there were another CFL team then I'm sure a rivalry could develop. I don't really see that happening in Atlantic Canada though. It will be 0-1 teams for the foreseeable future.

This is a bit controversial but people in Halifax tend not to reciprocate whatever sense of rivalry exists in other cities in the region. The relationship in that sense is something like Toronto-Hamilton (or Toronto-Calgary) rather than Regina-Saskatoon or Edmonton-Calgary.

The provincial boundaries in the Maritimes and Atlantic Canada are a bit less significant than elsewhere in Canada I would say. BC, Ontario, and Quebec feel more like the Maritimes than just Nova Scotia in terms of connectedness versus being little islands. Newfoundland is a bit less connected but then again it's no less connected than northern BC or northern Ontario.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

The question is: What do you do with it? You can hand it to the government to run (see: the Big O), but if there's no profitable reason to keep the building, it's effectively an empty, money-losing monument.

Ottawa doesn't need two NHL-sized arenas. If it was Toronto, sure, an alternative venue would be great.
.

And there is also an arena with 10,000 capacity in the heart of the city at Lansdowne that competes for events.

There is also a 4-5,000 capacity venue currently under construction in Gatineau. Though I don't think that will compete much with the Ottawa venues in terms of events.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

To answer the question of what can one do before the game, many restaurants in the Kanata area, and even elsewhere in the city, offer their own bus service to and from NHL games (and maybe other events?) at the CTC. Options after the games are more limited, however.

I think the CTC served us well for the first 20 years or so, but with the Kanata area now having a population of 120,000+, adding to the congestion, we're reaching a breaking point..

Regionally-focused stuff like outlet malls, etc. have also opened in Kanata, which also contribute to congestion.

[Oilkountry]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Copps and SaskPlace are not totally white elephants in that they are the main arenas for their cities, just that they were overbuilt in anticipation of NHL teams that never came. Both cities could have gotten away with building something half to two thirds the size, but that's hindsight. Time will tell whether Videotron will enter the same category.

It's a little murkier with respect to CTC... a quarter century is a short lifespan by Canadian NHL arena standards but it isn't that far off from the average either.

You're not comparing apples to oranges though. Rexall is the only arena in Canada that I can think of that was somewhat modern and retired regardless.

Winnipeg,Toronto,Montreal,Quebec City,Vancouver all replaced arenas that were not suitable for today's standards and couldn't be retrofitted to accommodate it at a cost that made sense.

The CTC could serve another 50 years as it doesn't lack anything today's NHL standards demand. And it has the room to add whatever the future will need. I would say 1990-2018 built arenas have a shelf life of 60-70 years or more so really the CTC is still very young as far as Canadian standards go, This would be an anomaly. I feel the same about Saskatoon and Hamilton. Both building could serve for decades to come for a fraction of the cost of replacement.

[Oilkountry]

Originally Posted by corynv

why would the NHL want out of a city that's rich in hockey history (Silver sevens dynasty, Original Sens Dynasty), especially when there are groups interested in keeping the team in ottawa. Not to mention, I blieve at this point the NHL wants melnyk out, and unless he ends up selling he'll be the owner at the relocated city (if that happens). And if he ends up selling priority would be to sell to a group to keep the team in the area.

The Sens aren't gonna leave over 2-3 years of "sort of poor" attendance. They are still making money at 15K a night and I can guarantee you their is 10+ ownership groups that would gladly take over if Melnyk wanted to sell. The sens are a meh team on the ice with a meh Arena and they have Nothing to sell tickets like other Canadian Markets (Mcdavid,Mathews,Laine,Gaudreau) but the situation in Ottawa is hardly Dire at the moment...Just Meh.

[EpicPonyTime]

Originally Posted by Oilkountry

The CTC could serve another 50 years as it doesn't lack anything today's NHL standards demand. And it has the room to add whatever the future will need. I would say 1990-2018 built arenas have a shelf life of 60-70 years or more so really the CTC is still very young as far as Canadian standards go, This would be an anomaly. I feel the same about Saskatoon and Hamilton. Both building could serve for decades to come for a fraction of the cost of replacement.

I agree with you in terms of Saskatoon, surprisingly. While I am a supporter of replacing Sask Place, fundamentally there isn't anything wrong with the arena that I don't think a reno couldn't fix, at least for the medium term. In Canadian terms, it's a big arena, it gets more traffic than it should, and it has served this city incredibly well. One of it's main issues - the lack of luxury boxes and revenue-drivers - isn't as big of an issue in the NLL/WHL as it would be in the NHL. It's a lot of context-specific issues with the arena that I have problems with and make me believe it needs to be replaced, but all things considered: Saskatchewan is lucky to have had an arena of its calibre.

[SaskScraper]

I agree, SaskTel Centre (SaskPlace) doesn't warrant replacement just yet, it's half life has only just been reached, renos to both concourse levels plus adding luxury boxes from the current 51 to the full 78 spots available would help for sporting events, even though luxury boxes for concerts generally don't add any extra revenue, for example, LA Forum doesn't have much for boxes but still is on the major concert circuits for many of LA's arena performances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_at_The_Forum

The biggest reason Saskatoon wants to build a new arena is because of it's location, 10km away from CBD is considered too far from downtown businesses such as restaurants & pubs/bars/clubs meaning lost revenue. Having a new arena downtown won't generally attract anymore events to the city than what SaskTel Centre already gets, but having an arena downtown will have spin-off revenue/taxes that the city doesn't want to loose out on any more.
Interestingly enough, the entertainment district in downtown Saskatoon centred along 21st street is busier at night with more traffic & difficulty finding parking, particularly on weekends, than it is during 9 to 5 business hours during the day.

Announced yesterday, SaskTel Centre is bidding on the Juno Awards for 2020. The Centre last held the awards in 2007.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4717277/2...nos-saskatoon/