Hockey: Tigers about to be homeless

Talk about kicking a team when they are down. Well two actually, as this affects both the Dal men's and women's hockey teams. The Halifax Metro News is reporting that the Dalhousie University board of governors voted yesterday to demolish Dalhousie Memorial Arena next spring, rather than spend $3 to $4 million to fix the roof.

The 30-year old arena features a very idiosyncratic wooden roof that I rather like, but I know visiting teams are not fond of the DMA dressing room setups. For media, well, the press box is a just a couple of tables at the top of the concourse and patrons are constantly tripping over your phone and power cords as they take a short cut to the beer serving area, but it does have character!

Sounds like some bigwigs at Dal aren't hockey fans and might be envious of UNB's shiny new Richard J. CURRIE CENTER. From the Metro article quoting Dal spokesman Charles Crosby:
“At this point we’re looking at a new fitness and wellness facility,” he said. The next step is to look for someone who could design the facility.

“The plan is for it to include things like physio, a cardio area, yoga studios and the like,” he said.
The bigger question is where will the Tigers play now? There is not another on-campus rink, so will Dal be sharing the venerable Halifax Forum with Saint Mary's next season? That's going to make boosting your attendance even more challenging. I can see the t-shirt now: Homeless team skating.

P.S. UNB's Aitken University Centre is older than Dal's Memorial Arena and the school spent a million bucks or more two years ago repairing the roof. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
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3 comments:

  1. It has been pointed out to me, and I should have remembered, that Universite de Moncton spent something like $6 million to renovate their even older on-campus J. Louis Levesque arena last year.

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  2. Always loved Dal Arena, but that was 15-20 years ago. It is really showing its age now, I am told?

    I'd think the Forum is the logical choice, and it's closer to Dal than SMU (though not by much, and is far from both campuses).

    Pulling down the arena to make up (with an expensive new building) for the relative shortcomings of Dalplex - still a good facility - seems odd to me.

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  3. Wow, so both my alma maters will have no arena!

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