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General Motors Place, commonly known as GM Place and nicknamed The Garage, is an indoor sports arena, located at 800 Griffiths Way in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The arena is home to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League. The arena is sponsored by General Motors Canada. As corporate sponsors are unable to brand sporting venues during the Olympics, GM Place will be temporarily renamed Canada Hockey Place during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, in February 2010.[2] The arena seats 18,810 for ice hockey and 19,700 for basketball. It has 88 luxury suites, 12 hospitality suites, and 2,195 club seats.
[edit] HistoryGM Place 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 moving 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. [edit] Entertainment upgrades In mid-2006 GM Place 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 of the largest video displays in the NHL. Measuring 13.5 feet (4.1 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m) they are capable of displaying widescreen images in 14-bit colours. Their size combined with their 10 mm pixel spacing gives them an image that is unrivaled in any NHL arena. The corners hold 5.5-foot (1.7 m) by 13.5-foot (4.1 m) displays with two ring displays each capping the top and bottom. The entire scoreboard weighs 49,000 lbs, 2% less than the one it replaced.[3][4] 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 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. [edit] Proposed expansionA proposal exists to adjoin a 22 storey, 312,000-square-foot (29,000 m2) office tower to the arena.[3] 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] Past major events
[edit] Future major events
[edit] References
[edit] External linksCategories: 1995 establishments | Indoor ice hockey venues in Canada | Indoor lacrosse venues in Canada | Music venues in Vancouver | Vancouver Canucks | Defunct National Basketball Association venues | National Hockey League venues | 2010 Winter Olympics venues | Basketball venues in Canada | Tourism in Vancouver | Sports venues in Vancouver | Olympic ice hockey venues | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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