Quote:
Originally Posted by Echoes
To be fair, SaskTel Centre serves more of a purpose than just hosting our WHL team. 
To my earlier point, Saskatoon's arena is the primary indoor facility for concerts, entertainment, and indoor events for Saskatchewan. The facility is well-used and profitable. It's also approaching 40 years old, which is not ancient by any stretch, but it is coming to the age where a decision needs to be made about its future. The concourses, bathrooms, and concession facilities are inadequate. The height of the ceiling is putting it at a disadvantage for touring acts and their rigging needs. The suburban location does not produce spinoff benefits for urban vibrancy, bar and restaurant patronization, etc. If a new arena is, say, 10 years from doors opening then our current facility will be approaching 50 years old.
Saskatoon could renovate SaskTel Centre, but that would double down on its awful location in an industrial area past the airport, and wouldn't leverage tax lift from downtown development to help pay for it. Securing partner funding for an un-sexy renovation is also tougher.
The city's convention facilities are also showing their age and inadequacy for current needs.
Thus, the arena/convention centre/downtown revitalization scheme. I'm not saying it's not a total moonshot, because it is. But there's been a lot more thinking that's gone into this around Saskatoon's, and Saskatchewan's, needs for these facilities than merely jumping on a sports and conventions bandwagon.
It's also not putting all our eggs in one basket. Saskatoon has recently made other strategic investments in quality of life with the art gallery, central library, bus rapid transit system. The Meewasin river valley is up for national urban park status. Saskatoon is thinking seriously about its future, and there's ambition here, even if our reach may be exceeding our grasp in places. |
Oh that's for sure... I saw Arcade Fire, Feist, and Kanye West at the SaskTel Centre back in the day, and it's a great facility, but it still seems insane for them to build
another NHL calibre arena when there's still no NHL team in sight for Saskatoon. Though, maybe the difference between a 10,000 capacity arena and 15,000 capacity arena isn't that much and it's not
that crazy.
I do get the benefit of going with a downtown facility, especially if it's accompanied with ambitious mixed use developments. Bad location or not, I just don't like the idea of demolishing what I still see as a perfectly fine arena, but I guess I haven't been inside of the SaskTel Centre since like 2011 or something.
Nothing wrong with a moonshot, but still, for $1 billion, I think Saskatoon could get a lot more bang for their buck in terms of mixed use developments downtown... try to limit the renovations of the SaskTel Centre to under $100 million or something? Maybe renovating SaskTel Centre could help them lure an AHL team to Saskatoon, which could become the Oiler's new farm team.
I also think it's ridiculous that the province of Quebec built an NHL calibre arena in Quebec City for a team that might not
ever come back, but refused to fund a new ballpark for an MLB team that never would have left in the first place had they funded the plans to build a new ballpark.
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...and going back to the CFL for a moment, and the prospect for CFL expansion into the Maritimes. I really do find the Saint John vs Moncton rivalry to be similar to the Regina vs Saskatoon rivalry, and think a New Brunswick branded CFL team in Moncton could be well supported across the province... probably not as rabidly supported as the Riders, but NB has Fredericton too, and many other smaller cities and towns, much like Sask has.
Saskatoon and Regina have a rivalry, but people from Saskatoon still come out to support the Riders, and not just in Regina, but all over Canada... they buy the merch, they follow the team closely, and they are rabid supporters, despite their city's rivalry with Regina.
If there was no Saskatchewan Roughriders, I very much doubt many people in Saskatchewan would travel all the way to Calgary, Winnipeg, or Edmonton to see a game if there was a team called the Prairie Thunder lol. I guess I just think a CFL expansion to the maritimes that only puts a team in Halifax called the Atlantic Schooners is a really bad idea, since if there was actually a CFL team in Winnipeg called the Prairie Thunder, almost no one from Saskatchewan would ever consider driving to Winnipeg to see a CFL football game, and very few Saskatchewanians would have any sort of affinity for the team or follow it simply because it was a CFL team for "the prairies".
So, I totally get Saskatoon wanting to build a new, state of the art hockey hockey arena, I just hope they don't tear down the SaskTel Centre once a new downtown arena does finally get built. Rename it the Gordie Howe Arena and try and keep it in use for a long as possible. In most cities it would be ridiculous to have two major hockey arenas, but not Saskatoon. Regina could follow suit too, though I'm not sure the Brand Centre is worth saving.
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