Don’t Move The Sens To LeBreton Flats: GRAY – Part 1

Here’s why you don’t locate a new arena at LeBreton Flats.

It’s not downtown. Now a lot of people have been bantering that LeBreton is downtown. No it isn’t.

There’s a great big hill between downtown and a LeBreton arena. It’s the one the Parliament Buildings are on. You might have seen it in pictures.

As well if you are on the Flats, you’d best clip a photo of pedestrians from a magazine to remind you what they look like because you won’t see them at LeBreton. Unless they are rock climbers getting to downtown.

Bidding For The Sens: All The Stars Come Out

One of the main reasons you put an arena in the urban core is to attract walk-up customers. That’s critical in Ottawa because corporate headquarters, which buy a whack of season tickets, are located in other cities. So you need walk-up or drive-up (as is the case of the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata).

Meanwhile, the National Capital Commission’s idea that this would be a cornerstone to an animated Flats is ludicrous. Arenas are empty by day and busy during 41 Ottawa Senators home games, a few exhibition games and a concert or two. Go for a walk around the CTC at noon. Pedestrians or motorists for that matter are as rare there as at LeBreton.

As for an entertainment district around the arena, well that requires people. Ask the owners of venues at Lansdowne and there are people in the Glebe (who don’t like shopping centres) and they still can’t draw flies.

“If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, nobody’s gonna stop ’em,” the philosopher king of baseball Yogi Berra once said profoundly. Yogi would probably say the same thing about LeBreton and Lansdowne.

What might work would be a combination of an arena and a casino. Casinos draw people all day and night in an elaborate tax on the poor and gambling addicted. But there’s no way the province will grant another gambling licence for Ottawa and the National Capital Commission would not want its polluted property sullied by punters.

Which brings us to the NCC which has jurisdiction over the piece of property which is owned by us (you know, Canadians) in name only. How much of a century has LeBreton been lying fallow? You want these guys to be your arena landlord? Only Samuel Beckett would confuse them with a quick Skip-The-Dishes delivery.

Then there’s the great selling point of LeBreton location … the LRT Confederation Line. Recently my colleague Ron Benn got his abacus out and discovered that our light-rail line does not have the capacity to efficiently take fans away from a LeBreton arena. That’s a bit of a downside.

Bettman’s Coming. Run For The Hills

So you have the family out for a Sens game and you’re standing in a queue with, say, 12,000 people hoping to get on a train. The rail line could close before the crowd gets home and god help them if they have to transfer to a dysfunctional bus. Irregularly timing and, coming to a bus stop near you, an e-bus at -30C in January. Good luck with that. You’d drive instead, if there were parking.

Or how about going to the arena by way of the train with each one full to the brim from people who loaded on somewhere in the hinterland. And you’re standing at Westboro station, with the family and $500 worth of tickets in your pocket, watching full trains go by as you slowly freeze in a station where heating, according to the Einsteins who designed this system, was just a frill.

Or the train just breaks down in bad weather.

As well, let’s not forget the location which is perceived as being the greatest asset of the LeBreton arena site. It has a too-small, too-irregular light-rail line serving it, but it has bridges and spectacular road connects to it. Cars are warm and don’t break down as often as the train so you drive.

That’s great. Where do you park?

Now out in Kanata at the CTC, wide expanses of parking lots greet you. You can use the only year-round functional transportation system in Ottawa, the roads. And they have cars which sometimes run between the potholes. Some are even electric. So with your warm family and $500 worth of tickets in your pocket, you can be sure you will be able to get to the game on time, though the traffic can be a challenge. Leave early.

Furthermore, the location of the CTC is not all that problematic. It is served by Highway 417 and 416 allowing fans to come to the game from all the way down to the St. Lawrence River and the deepest, darkest reaches of the valley … and of course Ottawa.

But that’s not all. This city is growing west. A few years ago, the population centre of Ottawa was Woodroffe Avenue, not Bank Street. By now it’s probably near Carleton Place. Leave the CTC and you depart from a growing population of Stittsville, Barrhaven and Kanata. Some of those people are your season ticket holders and business owners who buy a box or two.

Oh yes, and did your agent forget that those parking spots generate lots and lots of cash?

Furthermore, the isolated location means that if you want a martini after the game, you’ll likely buy it (at the price of a mortgage payment) at the CTC. That said, Sens games are family occasions so most parents are reluctant to take the family to a bar post-match. That’s Ottawa. A great place, not a pub, to raise a family.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays, like the Senators, toyed with the idea of building a new ballpark. A good idea because the Rogers Centre is the best location in town. Subways, GO Trains, conventional trains, freeways and even an airport converge there. It’s downtown. So after much tugging of forelocks, the Jays decided to stay where they are and renovate. The Rogers Centre is highly functional with a movable roof for good and bad weather.

So rather than spend billions on a stadium, the Jays are saving money by renovating. Maybe the Sens should consider that though there’s not much wrong with the CTC.

But more than anything else, fans will come to Kanata for hockey if the Sens provide a good, exciting product. People will drive for hours to see a young team with playoff potential … which is what the Sens have now.

For those who don’t drive, there’s television, streaming, radio, pay-per-view and specialty channels.

Sutcliffe And Bettman On TV: A Bad Look

And with the enormous number of home entertainment choices available, conventional television can rarely draw large audiences unless there’s a big sports event to be broadcast. That’s why Rogers, with lots of programing necessary, paid $5.32 billion for Canadian NHL broadcasting rights. The time is coming in the future when paid spectators will be pocket-change compared to broadcasting revenue.

In time, stadium locations simply won’t matter anymore for teams. The NFL Green Bay Packers play somewhere near the moon but remain one of the most popular sports franchises in the world. Why? Broadcasting revenue.

One other thing … the CTC works. It’s tested, tried and true. Moving is a gamble. At least with the Kanata location, fans know that drive is long but warm and there’s a parking spot waiting for them that will generate revenue for the team. Your family will be safe and warm. At LeBreton, taking the train is a crap-shoot and drivers can’t be sure where to park.

So the best bet for the Sens is to stay where they are. The CTC is functional, the arena is paid for and staying is much cheaper than moving.

Ken Gray

 —

Don’t miss our regular features

Everything Ottawa      Full Local     Bulldog Canadian

Opinion    Comments    Breaking News   Hood Hub

Ontario   World    Get Cheap Gas   Big Money

Pop Gossip   Your Home    Relax …

Bulldog Weather    Full Local Sports

Page 2   Page 3   Page 4   Page 5   Page 6

Other features:    Full Bulldog Index    Return to Bulldog Home