Stadiums & Arenas of Canada, Part 3 - Page 96

SaskScraper · #**1901** Posted **Oct 4, 2018, 3:17 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Last night was the home opener for the Moncton Wildcats at the new downtown Avenir Centre.

The game was a "technical sellout" at 8,800, but the final ass-in-the-seat attendance was 8,488 as some ticket holders didn't shop up (presumably season ticket holders with something better to do). Regardless, this was still the highest attended hockey game in NB history.

The building is state of the art. Brilliant lighting, impressive audio, a big ass jumbotron scoreboard, and the ability to project moving images on the ice surface (as seen in the third image above during the opening ceremony - native drummers and singers at centre ice, standing on the MicMac flag).

Roomy seats, wide concourses with a wide variety of food concessions, each with a specialty - pizza, donair, poutine, etc. There is even "show kitchen" serving more exotic fare - the arena has a Cordon Bleu chef FFS! Lots of beer concessions, including one selling only craft beer, and a second concourse concession selling only wine and spirits. There's a Goji's frozen yogurt concession but curiously, the Tim Horton's concession is not yet open.

The place is truly a mini-NHL calibre arena. There is no comparison between this place and the old Moncton Coliseum.

As I texted to my son last night while seated in the arena - "Toto - I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore.....".

And, oh by the way, the Wildcats put the icing on the cake last night by defeating the hated Saint John Sea Dogs 5-2.

Now New Brunswick has a mini-'NHL calibre Arena' to match your 'World Class' Track and Field Stadium.

Anyways Well done, Congratulations & Bravo! I'm look forward to see broadcast lots of National events hosted in your Province now.
Bring on The Brier, The Juno's and a shared-city World Junior Hockey !

I must admit this new arena looks more and more like Canalta Centre in Medicine Hat every time I see the box seating on the one side and the bowl stadium seating on the end.

https://www.google.ca/maps/uv?hl=en&...oiowCnoECAoQCQ

http://www.smgworld.com/business/canalta-centre

esquire · #**1902** Posted **Oct 4, 2018, 1:16 PM**

^ Avenir Centre appears to have a fairly conventional donut-shaped seating bowl, except that the top of one of the sides is cut off to accommodate suites, press boxes, etc.

That Canalta Centre in Medicine Hat looks like a different beast altogether... it's interesting how the seating layout has a second tier of seats only in one end. It looks like they designed it that way to try and get a concert hall-type atmosphere for smaller 3,000 seat and under performances. It reminds me a bit of Bridgestone Arena in Nashville where one end is tailored to concerts. It's an ingenious design for concerts and shows, but it does probably mean that they have a large, conspicuously empty block of seats at nearly all hockey games.

It appears that you can buy tickets to sit there for hockey, though...

SaskScraper · #**1903** Posted **Oct 4, 2018, 4:32 PM**

^ The beauty of semi-horseshoe Canalta Centre, which was built 3 years ago in Med Hat, is that with the one end bowl seats retracting and the extra upper tier seats at the one end, the arena can actually hold more people for end-seating concerts than it can for regular hockey games, which at Canalta seats over 7,000.

With straight full bowl seating like Avenir Centre, 1/4 of the seats are retracted and not usable for end seat concerts and you'd get concerts with less than the arena's full seating capacity even when taking into consideration for the extra couple thousand seats on the floor.

Full bowl concerts with centre floor stages like the Metallica concert last month in Saskatoon that held 17,000 spectators allow for the largest seating capacity though.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4458556/m...oon-food-bank/

p.s. esquire,your city & Saskatoon where the only two Canadian concert dates for Metallica's WorldWired North American Fall tour apparently.

The Fisher Account · #**1904** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 6:14 PM**

CMLC (Calgary Municipal Land Corporation) released concepts of a new Calgary event centre (arena) today. Note that these concepts were provided by the Flames.

CMLC is responsible for redeveloping the Rivers district (current area where the Saddledome is).

Interesting to see that this may be one of the first examples of an inverted bowl in Canada.

Calgarian · #**1905** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 6:23 PM**

Looks interesting, too bad the major tenant isn't interested unless it's pretty much gifted to them...

J.OT13 · #**1906** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 6:26 PM**

Looks like Rossetti's using his inverted bowl design on this one. That could be a good concept for Ottawa (he is the arena architect for LeBreton) to limit costs and maximize mid-priced tickets in a government town with little corporate support.

http://www.rossetti.com/inverted-bowl-rossetti
http://theinvertedbowl.com/

VANRIDERFAN · #**1907** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 7:04 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

CMLC (Calgary Municipal Land Corporation) released concepts of a new Calgary event centre (arena) today. Note that these concepts were provided by the Flames.

CMLC is responsible for redeveloping the Rivers district (current area where the Saddledome is).

Interesting to see that this may be one of the first examples of an inverted bowl in Canada.

Is the Rivers District on the Bow River Flood Plain? Wouldn't it be smarter in these days of 100 year floods every 10 years to let that area go back to being a flood plain and build on higher ground?

DoubleK · #**1908** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 7:16 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Is the Rivers District on the Bow River Flood Plain? Wouldn't it be smarter in these days of 100 year floods every 10 years to let that area go back to being a flood plain and build on higher ground?

Yes, it's in the flood plain, but it's important to note that the Saddledome was flooded by the Elbow River not the Bow.

After the flood mitigations are finished the likelihood of this area flooding again will be virtually zero.

tomthumb2 · #**1909** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 7:32 PM**

Love the idea of the inverted bowl. Let's hope this goes somewhere for once!

Calgarian · #**1910** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 7:33 PM**

The arena would also be built with flood defenses to further mitigate risk, likely a flood wall above grade and a double foundation below grade.

DoubleK · #**1911** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 7:38 PM**

Inverted bowl idea looks super cool.

I really hope they retain the "Saddledome" roof line appearance (can be a facade on a proper arena roof). The last thing North America needs is another cookie cutter boxy arena building.

Calgarian · #**1912** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 7:50 PM**

I think it's likely the Saddledome will be kept after a new arena gets built, though I bet they remove a lot of the seats (possibly the entire 3rd tier).

The Fisher Account · #**1913** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 8:16 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calgarian

I think it's likely the Saddledome will be kept after a new arena gets built, though I bet they remove a lot of the seats (possibly the entire 3rd tier).

The Saddledome will be kept for a few more years if they win the 26' Games bid and will be used as a secondary venue.

The plan is to demolish the building afterwards, as Calgary really can't support two venues that size, and the land is too valuable not to redevelop.

VANRIDERFAN · #**1914** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 8:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calgarian

The arena would also be built with flood defenses to further mitigate risk, likely a flood wall above grade and a double foundation below grade.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Yes, it's in the flood plain, but it's important to note that the Saddledome was flooded by the Elbow River not the Bow.

After the flood mitigations are finished the likelihood of this area flooding again will be virtually zero.

When will we learn the Nature doesn't give a fuck about your flood mitigations?

Much smarter and cheaper to build on non-flood plains and never have to worry about flood mitigation measures.

Not my city so not my concern.

EpicPonyTime · #**1915** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 8:52 PM**

The Inverted Bowl proposal is really exciting; if this gets built and it works well I'd love to see a smaller copy in Saskatoon. Based on design alone, this looks vastly superior to CalgaryNEXT.

tomthumb2 · #**1916** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 8:56 PM**

One thing that's uber cool IMHO is the "projection mapping" instead of the jumbotron: http://theinvertedbowl.com/

DoubleK · #**1917** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 9:03 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

When will we learn the Nature doesn't give a fuck about your flood mitigations?

Much smarter and cheaper to build on non-flood plains and never have to worry about flood mitigation measures.

Not my city so not my concern.

So move the whole city?

Calgarian · #**1918** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 9:27 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

When will we learn the Nature doesn't give a fuck about your flood mitigations?

Much smarter and cheaper to build on non-flood plains and never have to worry about flood mitigation measures.

Not my city so not my concern.

Except that flood mitigation does work if you build it properly.

And it's obviously not smarter or cheaper to move a whole fucking city!!!

Nice post though, very constructive...

VANRIDERFAN · #**1919** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 10:06 PM**

Is the entire city on a flood plain? No it isn’t.
But the city should really consider where it places new development in relation to rivers that run through them.

Calgarian · #**1920** Posted **Oct 5, 2018, 10:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Is the entire city on a flood plain? No it isn’t.
But the city should really consider where it places new development in relation to rivers that run through them.

No, just the main urban part for the whole city is in the flood plain, no big deal, we'll just move all of downtown...