Quote:
Originally Posted by Joborule
So for buildings that could be built that would be used for the Olympics, which ones would be new?
- Obviously, a new hockey arena
- Curling venue, which could be done in the new fieldhouse
- Nakiska upgrades for many of the alpine/snow park events (with or without the downhill alpine events occuring at Lake Louise)
- Winsport upgrades for other snow park events
Anything else that would need to be newly built/significantly upgraded? If not, then a fair amount of events can occur in the currently built venues then.
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Depending on the construction timetable for the BMO Centre, the Corral could potentially be used as the small hockey/sledge hockey venue, although it would require significant renovations, especially to be usable for sledge because the dressing rooms and ice surface would all need to be accessible.
That would be a lot of money (estimated around $20 million in the report to Council) for a building that's scheduled to meet a wrecking ball soon.
If the Stampede pushes the BMO Centre renovations up to use the full facility as the International Broadcast Centre for the Games, the Corral would be torn down and a different small hockey venue would need to be found.
If the Corral isn't available, the next largest arenas in Calgary are either Winsport or Max Bell. They would likely want bigger arenas than that.
The Flames new arena will likely have an attached practice rink (as has become customary in new arenas). If designed with temporary expansion in mind, they could potentially build it to hold 6000+ for the Olympics and then downsized afterwards (or build it to be 6000 permanently to replace the Corral straight-up).
If they start to look outside the city limits, I could see the Centrium in Red Deer as a good Curling venue. They would want the hockey rinks to be as close to each other as possible.