I attended a Stampeder season ticket holder luncheon this past Tuesday. Gordon Norrie, the Stampeder's president was in attendance. During the Q&A session, there was concern from a STH that the Stamps would play second fiddle to the Flames and have to wait for a McMahon replacement until after a new arena would be built. Norrie commented that a joint facility would be built comprised of 3 multipurpose components: an arena, an outdoor facility and what he described as a fieldhouse. He could not comment on location other than it would be "centrally" located. An announcement is very likely to be made by the new year. The Flames are waiting to have the deal done before making it public to avoid the mess the Oiler's made of their arena announcement. I later had the opportunity to question him directly as he ended up sitting at our table. He had no specifics about the configuration/capacity of the new arena. He did say the entire complex would have a footprint of approximately 25 acres. Parking would likely be "vertical" and would be partially underground and partially above ground. I took it to mean parkade style. Not crazy about that idea. He also said that CFL football would be in the fieldhouse and capacity would be in the neighbourhood of 27,000.
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