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Globe: Second NHL Team for Toronto?

^lol! The artist got over eager... notice the blonde with the capri jeans and hoodie in the foreground. Now look to the far left where there are 2 girls in the background. same blonde in the capri jeans and hoodie.Ha!
 
fiendishlibrarian said:
Oooh, renderhotties abound...

600_x_450_interior_view_of_party_deck.jpg
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Look at the creeper staring at them in the background.
 
I'm glad to see the mismatch of seat colours will be changed to all red. Having played quite a few games in Copps, the multi-coloured seats can be incredibly disorienting. Mind you it doesn't matter when the seats are full, but when they're empty any puck that goes above board level looks like it's going in and out of different colours, which is especially hard for goalies to pick up.

I like the renders, they make the place look really classy and would make Copps one of the best arenas in the league.
 
The exterior seems a bit cheap and suburban to me. That corner bulge reminds me of Y/Eg Center. Interior looks nice enough though.
DSCF0093.jpg
 
Not really a fan of the design. I share Whoaccio's sentiments that the exterior looks rather cheap with the glass and the screen. If Balsillie doesn't build this right, it might end up being Hamilton's version of Toronto Life Square.

I actually like the existing "mismatch of seat colours" at Copps. If they are planning to update the seating, at least select a colour that isn't found in most other NHL arenas. It seems like half the NHL plays in arenas with red seats.

I would like to see some sort of tower on the arena that would put an impact on Hamilton's skyline. Something like the mast at Nashville's Sommet Center. I wonder if Balsillie is interested in a MLS-like development in Hamilton (Wikipedia says that Vancouver's GM Place is pursuing its own real estate component).

sommet-center.jpg
 
I really like the design. It's much nicer than the ACC for sure. The placement of the Gardiner beside the ACC doesn't help with that though.
Anyway, the balconies on the outside are awesome. Although, if I were at an event at Copps, I'm not sure why I'd be wanting to go out on the balcony. Maybe for smokers?
The only complaints I have about the design, is the ground level outside is kind of boring, and the roof could use something a little more...
 
Kiwi said:
Proposal for a renovated Copps Coliseum....
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I wonder how much longer the "Copps" part will be around for - notice its absence in the renders.

Does Copps still have the old scoreboard from Winnepeg Arena? Although it probably wouldn't survive the renovations regardless, there would be something almost full-circle about the Coyotes playing under it.
 
wyliepoon said:
Not really a fan of the design. I share Whoaccio's sentiments that the exterior looks rather cheap with the glass and the screen. If Balsillie doesn't build this right, it might end up being Hamilton's version of Toronto Life Square.
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Yeah, too self-conscious an update, with BBBanality written all over it (reference to the architects, ya know). And as I've said before, the existing late-modern Copps aesthetic actually hasn't worn badly--I'd rather they compliment it than efface it...
 
^
Why did the NHL stooge keep referring to Pheonix as the "original home" of the Coyotes? I'm not even a hockey fan and I know that the Coyotes were founded as the Winnipeg Jets in '79 (er joined the NHL in '79). They only moved to Phoenix in what, '95? So its not like hockey has a long and glorious history in Phoenix. Maybe if the Redwings or Canadians stumbled on a financial roughspot, location protection would be fair. Phoenix isn't Montreal though.
 
Chris Selley: How to internationalize the NHL
Posted: May 31, 2009, 9:22 PM by Chris Selley
Full Comment, Full Pundit, Chris Selley

Over the last week, three magnificent European soccer traditions unfolded that are almost completely foreign—for no good reason, I think—to North America’s professional sports leagues.

* In Birmingham on Sunday, the last day of the English Premier League season, Aston Villa beat Newcastle United and punted the storied team down to the tier-two Championship division, along with its fanatically dedicated fan base, 52,000-seat stadium and billionaire owner. It’s tough to argue with the brutal logic of relegation, and it makes terrific television too. On the one hand you had the blubbering, shell-shocked Toon Army, which had travelled in great numbers to Villa Park to see their team phone in one more loss; on the other you had Hull City fans, whose team stayed in the Premiership thanks to Villa’s win. Hull won just eight of 38 league matches, and indeed had just lost at home to Manchester United to wind up the season, but the fans stormed the pitch in jubilation as if their guys had defeated Hitler.
* On Wednesday in Rome, Barcelona beat Manchester United in the final of the UEFA Champions League, a competition that embodies the entirely reasonable principle that national club champions should want to play each other to determine which is the best team in Europe (and, by extension, the world).
* Yesterday at Wembley Stadium in London, Chelsea beat Everton to win the FA Cup, an annual tournament—distinct from the Premiership—that basically affords every soccer team in England, no matter how lowly, the chance of becoming national champion. The minnows never actually win, of course, but the possibility alone, and the chance of a jacked-up bunch of hacks beating a much better team that underestimated them, is compelling. We have nothing like it.

I would argue all these events demonstrate a sort of natural law of sports: everyone should have a chance to compete, there should be consequences to losing, and teams should keep playing each other until a definitive champion has been established. Sadly, we have none of these things on this side of the Atlantic, least of all in the one major sport I really care about, which is hockey. Some of these ideas may never take hold. A relegation/promotion system just makes no sense in the NHL’s corporate structure, though it would sure be nice (said the die-hard Leafs fan, nervously). Consider: if Jim Balsillie wanted to own a Premiership team in the London area but couldn’t land one of the five at a reasonable price, he could just buy one of the nine other pro teams in and around the city, spend as much money as he liked on players, or a new stadium, or whatever, and send them on the road to promotion. That’s capitalism, baby. Here, we have Gary Bettman valiantly fending off the last unindicted billionaire who wants to own an NHL franchise on grounds he wants to move the franchise in question to a clearly superior market.

International play, however, has long been a hockey strength. If, as seems likely, 2010 will be the last Olympics for NHL players, we’ll be left with the distinctly second-rate summertime World Cup as the only top-level professional hockey competition in the world. That’s very bad news for the game, and that’s just nation-on-nation competition. International club fixtures, to the extent they exist at all, are restricted to half-assed pre-season affairs, the epitome being the Victoria Cup, in which the European Champions League winner plays a team, randomly chosen by the NHL head office, that happens to be opening its season in Europe. Last year, for no good reason, it was the New York Rangers. This year, at least, Detroit is going to Europe, and we might be able to see the European and North American champs battle (however tamely). Mind you, as the NHL is run by monkeys, we might just as easily see Zurich’s ZSC Lions up against the Florida Panthers. Meow!

Besides either recommitting to the Olympics or seriously beefing up the World Cup, I believe the NHL’s ultimate goal should be to enter at least two teams—a Canadian and an American champion—into the IIHF Champions Hockey League. Of the 23 best hockey leagues in the world, it’s the only one that doesn’t participate, and the ascendancy of the KHL in Russia makes the move even more natural. We’d only be talking about eight extra games for the teams that qualify directly to the group stage of the tournament, and the NHL’s participation would give it enormous leverage in changing the scheduling and format to fit its needs.

In the shorter term, I think the six Canadian NHL teams should establish a national championship based on a home-and-home series between each team. This wouldn’t mean playing any extra games, an idea which is only slightly more antithetical to the NHL and its players union than playing fewer. These would be NHL games that count double. It’s no FA Cup, that’s for sure. But it strikes me as a perfect way to spice up the league’s traditional mid-season dog days, and a wee baby step on the way towards a more international, more unpredictable, less pre-packaged game.
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A promotion/relegation system really seems drastically superior to the various pro-league monopolies in N.America. Its gotta be self evident to most people that more competition is better than less competition when it comes to competitive sports. It should also be self evident that teams that routinely fail should face some kind of consequence and teams that succeed should be rewarded. In the NHL, failure is almost promoted with draft picks.

Actually, come to think about it, are pro-leagues (NHL,NFL,MLB,NBA) sports really a monopoly? In the Eurozone football really is the only professional sport. I guess there is some basketball and hockey in the North, but no American Football and definitely no baseball. If I didn't like the Leafs, I could just watch the Jays. If you are in Rome, you need more than a few football teams to maintain choice because you sure as hell wont go to a baseball match. When you include all the NCAA sports, most American cities have a few bit of professional or pseudo-professional sports teams.
 
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Actually, come to think about it, are pro-leagues (NHL,NFL,MLB,NBA) sports really a monopoly? In the Eurozone football really is the only professional sport. I guess there is some basketball and hockey in the North, but no American Football and definitely no baseball. If I didn't like the Leafs, I could just watch the Jays. If you are in Rome, you need more than a few football teams to maintain choice because you sure as hell wont go to a baseball match. When you include all the NCAA sports, most American cities have a few bit of professional or pseudo-professional sports teams.
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The fans would run away and the franchise would die or move. This would happen yearly. The Maple Leafs would probably be in something equal to beer league softball the way that franchise has gone and would probably still sell out... Hocky in Toronto is the exception. North America's a different market.
 
lesouris said:
I wonder how much longer the "Copps" part will be around for - notice its absence in the renders.
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BlackBerry Balsillie Coliseum?
RIM boss has Copps naming rights

June 04, 2009
Ken Peters
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/577234

If Jim Balsillie wants to rip the name 'Copps' from the front of Hamilton's Bay Street ice palace he has the power to do so.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger comfirmed yesterday that as part of Balsillie's lease pact for Copps Coliseum, the Waterloo billionaire owns the naming rights to the city-owned 24-year facility that honours former city mayor Victor K. Copps.

Eisenberger said the only proviso is that the Copps' name must be reflected somewhere inside the arena.

The mayor said a similar clause was in the 2007 Copps lease that was approved for Balsillie's unsuccessful bid to bring the Nashville Predators to the city.

"He could take the name 'Copps' off the front of the building," Eisenberger confirmed adding he had heard through media reports that Copps' daughter Sheila was not adverse to the move if it facilitated an NHL team locating there, fullfilling her father's dream to secure such a franchise for the city.

But there is also the possibility Balsillie could sell the naming rights to a sponsor, such as Labatt's Brewery, which has come on board as a corporate sponsor for Balsillie's NHL bid.

But Eisenberger said he would hope Balsillie would involve the community in a consultative process before settling on a new name for the facility.

Balsillie confirmed in his application to relocate the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton that he indeed owned the naming rights to the complex.

And in a series of artist drawings completed to show the arena in the wake of a proposed $150-million renovation, the Copps name is nowhere to be found.

Basillie spokesman Bill Walker said yesterday his client has given no consideration at this point to selling the naming rights of Copps Coliseum.

A Phoenix bankruptcy court will convene Tuesday to determine whether the bankrupt Coyotes' franchise can indeed be relocated to Hamilton. The NHL is fighting the possible releocation.
 
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