Rogers Arena (formerly known as General Motors Place prior to July 6, 2010) is an indoor sports arena located at 800 Griffiths Way in the downtown area of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The arena seats 18,810 for ice hockey and 19,700 for basketball, with 88 luxury suites, 12 hospitality suites and 2,195 club seats.
It is home to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League and was the site for the ice hockey events at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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| Former names | General Motors Place (1995–2010) Canada Hockey Place (2010 Winter Olympics) |
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| Location | 800 Griffiths Way, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 6G1, Canada |
| Coordinates | 49°16′40″N 123°6′32″W / 49.27778°N 123.10889°WCoordinates: 49°16′40″N 123°6′32″W / 49.27778°N 123.10889°W |
| Opened | September 21, 1995 |
| Owner | Canucks Sports & Entertainment |
| Operator | Canucks Sports & Entertainment |
| Construction cost | C$160 million |
| Architect | Brisbin, Brook and Beynon |
| Capacity | Ice hockey: 18,810 Basketball: 19,700 Concert: 19,000 |
| Tenants | |
| Vancouver Canucks (NHL) (1995–present) Vancouver Grizzlies (NBA) (1995–2001) Vancouver Ravens (NLL) (2001–2004) Vancouver Voodoo (RHI) (1996) 1998 NHL All-Star Game 1998 NBA Draft 2006 NHL Entry Draft 2010 Winter Olympics (ice hockey venue) |
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Rogers Arena (formerly known as General Motors Place prior to July 6, 2010) is an indoor sports arena located at 800 Griffiths Way in the downtown area of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The arena seats 18,810 for ice hockey and 19,700 for basketball, with 88 luxury suites, 12 hospitality suites and 2,195 club seats.
It is home to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League and was the site for the ice hockey events at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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[edit] History
The arena was completed in 1995 at a cost of C$160 million in private financing to replace the aging Pacific Coliseum as the main venue for events in Vancouver and to serve as the home arena to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League and the Vancouver Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association. The Grizzlies spent six seasons in Vancouver before relocating to Memphis, Tennessee, for the 2001–02 season.
The arena was briefly home to the Vancouver Ravens of the National Lacrosse League from 2002 to 2004. The operations of the team have since been suspended. Attempts were made to revive the team in 2007 and again in 2008.
The employees of the arena belong to a trade union. In 2007, they chose to change their union affiliation from Unite Here – Local 40 to the Christian Labour Association of Canada. After many months of struggle the British Columbia Labour Relations Board declared the employees choice of a new union. The employee group includes hosts, housekeeping, security and various event staff at the venue. UNITE-HERE local 40 still represents food service workers in the arena, they are employed by Aramark.
[edit] Entertainment upgrades
In mid-2006 the arena was upgraded with a ProAd LED ribbon board encircling the upper bowl and shortly thereafter with a $5 million Daktronics ProStar LED scoreboard. The original Mitsubishi Mark IV displays needed to be removed since the worldwide supply of replacement parts was not large enough to keep them operating throughout the 2006–2007 hockey season.
The new LED scoreboard is built around four widescreen video displays that were the largest in the NHL until Bell Centre's upgrades two years later. Measuring 4.13 by 7.3 metres (13.5 by 24 ft) they are capable of displaying images in 4.4 trillion colours. Their size combined with their 10 mm pixel spacing gives them an image that is, when viewed from the first row of the upper section at the red line, comparable to watching a 34-inch (860 mm) television at 3.1 metres (10 ft). The corners hold 1.67-by-4.13-metre (5.5 by 13.5 ft) displays with two ring displays each capping the top and bottom. The entire scoreboard weighs 22 tonnes (49,000 lb), 2% less than the one it replaced. The normally three-week assembly period was completed in only one week and as a result there were some minor technical difficulties during the first home game.
The arena received further upgrades in October 2008 but this time it was in the audio department. The 13-year-old Bose sound system was replaced with a new, more powerful one. As with the original system, the designers used audio modeling software to verify that the design's clarity and power requirements were acceptable.
The system consists of L-Acoustics speakers and amplified controllers and is mixed through a Soundcraft Vi6 digital console. The console and controllers are linked through a redundant fibre network allowing the console to be moved to various places around the building within minutes.
Suspended from the roof are 78 full-range line source cabinets, 12 woofers, 16 subwoofers and 6 full-range cabinets in the scoreboard for additional on-ice coverage. These are driven by 23 LA8 amplifiers providing 165,600 watts of available power at 4 ohms. It is the largest L-Acoustics installation in North America.
The speaker breakdown is as follows.
| Speaker groupings | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-range array | Subwoofer array | Scoreboard | |
| Components | 2 x dV-SUB (1,200 W) 13 x dV-DOSC (447 W) |
8 x SB28 (1,225 W) | 6 x ARCS (475 W) |
| Power (RMS) | 8,211 W | 9,800 W | 2,850 W |
| Quantity | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| Total power (RMS) | 71,716 W | ||
The system was designed by Canucks Sports & Entertainment in partnership with Sennheiser Canada and was installed by Vancouver-based Rocky Mountain Production Services.
[edit] Naming rights
The arena was originally named "General Motors Place" as part of a sponsorship arrangement with General Motors Canada, and was commonly known as "GM Place" or "The Garage." It was temporarily renamed "Canada Hockey Place" for a two week period during the 2010 Winter Olympics due to Olympics regulations regarding corporate sponsorship of event sites. On July 6, 2010 it was announced that General Motors would relinquish the naming rights for the arena and that Rogers Communications had agreed to terms on a ten-year sponsorship deal. The arena was subsequently rebranded as Rogers Arena.
[edit] Proposed expansion
A proposal exists to adjoin a 22 story, 312,000-square-foot (29,000 m) office tower to the arena. The building will accommodate office space, with a proposed connection from the stadium concourse to the lobby of the tower. The extra concourse space would also accommodate additional fan-oriented areas such as concessions and food outlets.
[edit] Notable events
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- September 19, 1995 – The first event is hosted, a Bryan Adams concert.
- August 29, 1996 – Hosted the Canada–Russia match during the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.
- January 18, 1998 – Host of the 1998 NHL All-Star Game.
- June 24, 1998 – Host of the 1998 NBA Draft.
- December 13, 1998 – Hosted WWE Rock Bottom.
- May 29, 2000 – Hosted WWE RAW.
- June 2001: – Rented for a month by Janet Jackson for rehearsals. The longest time a promotion has booked the arena.
- March 17 – March 25, 2001 – Host of the 2001 World Figure Skating Championships.
- October 6, 2002 – Queen Elizabeth II dropped the ceremonial first puck in an NHL exhibition game between the San Jose Sharks and the Vancouver Canucks.
- November 7, 2002 – Riot when Axl Rose failed to show for Guns N' Roses show.
- January 2 – 5, 2006 – Served as the venue for the Medal Round of the 2006 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.
- June 24 – June 25, 2006 – Hosted the 2006 NHL Entry Draft.
- September 9, 2007: – Hosted Game 8 of the 2007 Super Series between Canada and Russia junior hockey teams.
- October 26, 2007 – Hosted a NBA pre-season game, the first NBA game held in Vancouver since April 2001, between the Phoenix Suns and the Seattle SuperSonics.
- March 29, 2009 – Hosted the 38th annual Juno Awards.
- February 13 – February 28, 2010: Ice hockey venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics while rebranded as Canada Hockey Place. These were the first Olympic games to use NHL-sized ice. This decision was made in order to maximize potential crowds and revenue, instead of building a smaller, temporary venue with the international-size ice surface as has been done for most other Winter Games.
- June 3, 2010 - Nickelback ended their 3rd North American Leg of the Dark Horse Tour.
- June 12, 2010 - Hosted UFC 115.
- July 6, 2010 – Name changed to "Rogers Arena".
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: General Motors Place |
[edit] References
- Kelowna.com Blue Jackets trounce Canucks 5–3. Retrieved on October 6, 2009.
- CBC Sports (July 6, 2010). "GM Place renamed Rogers Arena". http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/story/2010/07/06/bc-canucks-gm-place-renamed.html.
- Zeimer, Brad (July 7, 2010). "Rogers Arena new name for former General Motors Place". Vancouver Sun. http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=3241587&sponsor=.
- "Canada Hockey Place". Vancouver 2010. http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/competition-schedules-and-venues/venues/-/41118/32528/wa4p0q/canada-hockey-place.html.
- ^ Jeremy Lanaway. "Show Time". Canucks.com. http://canucks.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=451687. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
- "General Motors Place Hot-Rodded With dV-DOSC Under The Hood". L-ACOUSTICS. http://www.l-acoustics.com/48-general-motors-place-hot-rodded-with-dv-dosc-under-the-hood.html. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
- "Vancouver’s General Motors Place Maximizes Audio Capabilities With The Soundcraft® Vi6". Soundcraft. http://www.soundcraft.com/news/news_story.aspx?type=0&nid=385. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
- Canadian Press (July 6, 2010). "GM Place to be renamed Rogers Arena". TSN.ca. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=326764. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
- http://www.hoffco-inc.com/wwe/ppv/ppv/iyh26.html
- "TSN broadcasts Monday Night RAW in Vancouver". http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jyb8ISQcxBAJ:www.ccnr.ca/english/decisions/2001/010410.php+May+29+2000+wwe+raw+vancouver&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca. Retrieved 2010-8-17.
- "Queen visits GM Place to drop ceremonial puck". http://www.boardoftrade.com/sov_page.asp?pageID=678. Retrieved 2010-10-05.
- Cohen, Jonathan (November 8, 2002). "Axl's No-show Sparks Vancouver Riot". Billboard. http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4602623-1.html. Retrieved 22 February 2010.
- "UFC 115 Vancouver Sun". http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Winners+losers+emergency+ward+after/3150045/story.html. Retrieved 2010-8-17.
