The future of the Ti-Cats

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats will have a new stadium ready for the 2014 season. Thing is, it's not that easy. After about 2 years of debates and arguing, they decided on the new stadium. The stadium will be a part of the Toronto Pan American Games, just 40 miles down the road.

 The team and the city couldn't come to an agreement on where they would put the new building. The city wanted it near the water, the team wanted it in the suburbs. But they decided on putting them in the same location as the current stadium. The problem with that, is that they wont have a stadium. For 2013, the Tiger-Cats will potentially be a traveling team. But it's better than losing the team. The stadium's capacity has dropped to around 28k, but whatever works. They won't be in the 80 year old Ivor Wynne Stadium much longer.

New Blue Bombers Stadium

In honor of the Grey Cup today, I will make some posts about the new era in CFL stadiums!

Tonight's game is at the renovated BC Place, which hosted it's first game in September. It is the first step into making the CFL more modern. The BC Lions are playing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, which are getting a new stadium next season.

I've had my eyes on this for a while, because they've had this plan for a few years. However they revised the plans, and dropped the arches. The stadium of 34k will be like a miniature version of a stadium like LP field or Raymond James. Upper decks on the sidelines, with a lower bowl on the endzone.

There was an option to view a virtual stadium on their website, but it isn't working now. They do have this demo video, which shows it pretty good, minus the overhangs.


The Bombers are one of the teams with a stadium well overdue to be replaced. Built in 1957, Canad Inns Stadium is part of the stadium trend being phased out for the better.

Later tonight, I will post about the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' situation.

The New BC Place Stadium

This is actually pretty funny. I was looking at some stadiums on worldstadiums.com, and was looking at Vancouver. I knew they were renovating BC Place stadium, and so I looked it up. Turns out, the first game played there with the new renovations took place Friday. The BC Lions hosted Edmonton and won 33-24. Then the Vancouver Whitecaps hosted the Portland Timbers today, but lost 1-0.

The renovations took place from April 2010 to September 2011. All together, over $150 million took place in major renovations. These included seating replacements, washroom and concessions renovations, and replacement of the ETFE roof with a new retractable roof. The work was done in two phases. The first phase involved upgrades to seating, washrooms, concessions, and luxury suites, as well as the reinforcement of the existing ring beam at the top of the building and was completed in October 2009. Work on the retractable roof began in May 2010, shortly after the completion of the 2010 Winter Paralympics and the final deflation of the air-supported roof. 1,140 tv screens were added, and the second largest hanging video board is located hanging above the field(only Dallas has a bigger one.)

Originally built in 1983, it was one of those crappy generic domes like the SIlverdome, RCA dome, and Metrodome. In one of the videos below, the host said when he played, the air just seemed to sit and it felt like you were running through mud. The stadium was always known to be very loud, but it wasn't that state of the art. The Winter Olympic ceremonies took place there, which is probably the biggest moment. Unless you think 7 Grey Cups might contend. The dome actually collapsed Metrodome style in 2007, not because of snow however.

Empire Field is a temporary stadium that housed the Lions and 'Caps for the last two and a half seasons. They built it in... 3 months. Which is very speedy. Especially for a stadium with 27,500 seats. Sure, it probably wasn't that amazing, but it's impressive. The stadium will be torn down now that BC Place is all new and shiny. So from now on, the Lions and Whitecaps will play games at the new stadium, and it really looks great. The 2011 Grey Cup will be hosted there, and that should be very nice.

 Here are some videos on the renovations from the BC Lions' website.
Second level, concessions- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/21033
Fourth level, seating, presentation, and roof- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/20997
The field, and scoreboard- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/20971
Gates, and locker room- http://bclions.com/video/index/id/20949