Deal reached to proceed with new Calgary arena to replace aging Saddledome

[johngould21]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:54 AM, Ghostsof1915 said:

I find it interesting, for a province that screams against government interference. They certainly don't mind asking for handouts for a new stadium.

Especially with an election coming up. The hypocrisy!

[Goal:thecup]

On 4/26/2023 at 6:33 AM, McBackup said:

They'll probably go back to that proposal where the arena is in the shape of a cowboy hat. 

 

It is honestly cartoonish how obsessed Calgary is with everyone thinking they're cowboys.

I think they should go with this one.

 

And have a great big Sourpuss Sutter Head pedestal to hold it up!

 

 

 

 

Sutter's Coaching:

 

 

[McBackup]

11 hours ago, canuck73_3 said:

A good summary of the reasons why Atlanta failed, taken from Reddit: 

 

First five years: their expansion draft was awful and full of missed opportunities, and putting up 39 points while the Braves are contending yearly and the Falcons were coming off a Super Bowl appearance was a disaster. Their inability to build from there is a direct indictment on their front office.

After that: ASG bought the Thrashers, the Hawks, and the rights to Philips Arena as a package deal and at a discount. They began attempting to flip the Thrashers immediately and ran into the roadblock of the seven-year relocation clause. Between the time they bought the Thrashers and the time they sold the team, the entire group spent more time in court suing each other and other groups than they did doing anything involving the team.

To expand a bit on the expansion draft part, when I re-did Nashville's in 98 I couldn't actually come up with one that was clearly better. Re-doing Atlanta's produced a decisively better team every single time while also providing more assets to work the trade market with. 70 points in the first year would be a stretch, but 60 wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility. They actually had 39.

 

In their expansion draft, Atlanta drafted one goalie of starting caliber (Trevor Kidd) and then traded him, one guy who was a backup but looked to be a starter soon (Norm Maracle), and Corey Schwab. They had the option of drafting up to five goalies at a time when the league was starved for actual goalies, thus creating significant trade value for anyone; Atlanta passed on two of these spots.

They drafted one defenseman who was first-pairing caliber (Mark Tinordi), and he happened to have missed more than 40% of possible games over the last three years. The three next-best that they took were Petr Buzek, Brett Clark, and Darryl Shannon. None of those three had yet demonstrated an ability to play on the top two pairings; Buzek and Clark were young and hadn't broken through, and Shannon led the Sabres in +/- over the preceding three seasons and was a healthy scratch as soon as Rhett Warrener was acquired at the deadline in 1999.

There were no first-line forwards taken, and no second-line forwards taken either.

My overall assessment of their expansion draft is here.

True, there weren't many top-six forwards or top-pairing defensemen available, but there were absolutely some. Atlanta passed on all of them, and in so doing irreparably crippled their team right from the very beginning.

In my first re-draft, a substantially better team is taken with multiple nonsensical trades simply not happening. The second re-draft, in which I handicap myself by forcing all trades to take place, it's still a better team. Yes, there are obvious holes and there's not much depth in either case, but neither one is 39 points bad.

The other big issue is that Waddell tended to string bad decisions together. For example, the second-year Thrashers had a first line of Ray Ferraro up the middle with Donald Audette on his right and Andrew Brunette on his left. On March 13, they had produced:

• Audette - 32 goals, 39 assists, 71 points in 64 games

• Ferraro - 27 goals, 41 assists, 68 points in 68 games

• Brunette - 12 goals, 40 assists, 52 points in 64 games

Audette was in the last year of his contract before becoming a UFA and was publicly very interested in coming back. Waddell thought that Audette's salary range was way out of skew with his actual market value (spoiler: it wasn't), and traded him on the 13th to Buffalo for Kamil Piros and a 4th-rounder.

The line totally fell apart without Audette. Ferraro had 2 goals and 8 points in the last 13 games without Audette, and Brunette had 3 goals and 7 points in those 13 games. Waddell then decided that Brunette was largely riding on Audette's coattails as far as his offensive production was concerned, and declined to qualify him that offseason (which I believe would have cost $500K). 2/3 of the line was gone in the span of three months.

Audette signed with Dallas for well over what his "outrageous" demands were from Atlanta, Brunette went to Minnesota and played another 800 games with 553 points, and Ferraro was so ineffective without both Audette and Brunette that he was traded the next year to St. Louis for a 4th-rounder.

Atlanta's entire first line was traded for Kamil Piros and two 4th-rounders, one of which was traded for Lubos Bartecko.

Honestly sounds like the Grizzlies situation here, except the Grizz actually had good support for the first 5 years before the bottom dropped out. I think Vancouver could support the NBA if they came here again. I also think Atlanta could support the NHL again in the right conditions, however they've had 2 kicks at the can and I don't think its fair to give them a third go while there are other cities waiting. Maybe in a few decades when the league expands to 40 teams or whatever.

 

I appreciate you actually digging out some details related to the situation instead of the usual refrain of "SOuTHeRn MaRkEtS BaD pUT a TeAM IN WHitEHoRSE". The attitude really bugs me. They complain about hockey not growing in one breath and then cry when the league attempts to expand the game. They kick and scream about Florida, Nashville or Arizona having a team because the fans won't support it, without acknowledging any extenuating circumstances, but bemoan when the league moved out of Winnipeg and Quebec for those extenuating circumstances. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by McBackup

[canuck73_3]

54 minutes ago, McBackup said:

Honestly sounds like the Grizzlies situation here, except the Grizz actually had good support for the first 5 years before the bottom dropped out. I think Vancouver could support the NBA if they came here again. I also think Atlanta could support the NHL again in the right conditions, however they've had 2 kicks at the can and I don't think its fair to give them a third go while there are other cities waiting. Maybe in a few decades when the league expands to 40 teams or whatever.

 

I appreciate you actually digging out some details related to the situation instead of the usual refrain of "SOuTHeRn MaRkEtS BaD pUT a TeAM IN WHitEHoRSE". The attitude really bugs me. They complain about hockey not growing in one breath and then cry when the league attempts to expand the game. They kick and scream about Florida, Nashville or Arizona having a team because the fans won't support it, without acknowledging any extenuating circumstances, but bemoan when the league moved out of Winnipeg and Nashville for those extenuating circumstances. 

I used to buy into the Southern Market thing when I was younger but one time I went to bring up attendance and was actually surprised at how strong it was the first half of their existence. That was when I learned to dig in and look at more than where they were located to judge/gauge and research the situation properly. 

[McBackup]

40 minutes ago, canuck73_3 said:

I used to buy into the Southern Market thing when I was younger but one time I went to bring up attendance and was actually surprised at how strong it was the first half of their existence. That was when I learned to dig in and look at more than where they were located to judge/gauge and research the situation properly. 

Yes. And “great” markets like Chicago and Boston had terrible attendance when they were bad. And “rabid hockey markets” like Minnesota, Quebec and Winnipeg had  teams up and leave. It’s pretty scummy to celebrate a team leaving a market, even if you don’t think they “deserve” the team. Especially when you bemoan other cities losing theirs.

 

Most people don’t want to actually dig into whatever they’re talking about, they just want whatever narrative they like to prevail. I used to get into it a lot with the people who shit on this fanbase and attack it as being the worst fans for example. Whenever I brought up data, figures, factual information or even basic contradictions in their logic the only response I get is “yeah but what about my myopic anecdotes and motivated reasoning?”

 

So at this point the best thing to do is just call them a mouthbreather and wish them a nice day.

 

 

[GunnerStaal]

On 4/26/2023 at 12:41 PM, Smashian Kassian said:

 

 

It's okay Jock, I didn't mean to make it a Cap vs Soc thing either. Not sure what's happening in Ontario but I respect your frustrations. 

 

Looking at this deal, Calgary is paying 537.3 million. They are getting the new arena, another smaller 1000 seat community arena/practice rink, a plaza, parking, road improvements & other community buildings. Then also 1.5M yearly from the Flames to go towards community sports programs.

 

Getting back to the BC place comp; 10 years ago we paid 514 million (easily over 600M in today's money) for the the new roof, scoreboard, turf, sound system, and many updates such as lighting/doors/Lions locker room, exc.

 

Personally I'm not hardline against public funding going towards stadiums if the benefits makes sense (it's like any other infrastructure really), in this case I think the Calgary is getting quite a bit out of it. This is going to be the crown jewel of the city for the next 40 years. I think the UCP did alright.

Yep, but to me this deal isn't a convervative thing (although Smith is trying to use it as one). This deal was approved unanimously by a city cousel that is largely center/left.  The thing that seems to be getting missed in all of this, is that the arena is only part of the deal.  The real benefit is the revitalization of the East viliage and rivers district downtown area.  Calgary has been investing a ton of money into this area and in large part it has quitely been a great success for calgary.  In the last 5 years they just finished a $250m pubilic library, a $80m 50,000sq/ft parkade and a $12m renovation to two floors of east village place. This has brought in a ton of private investment to turn this neighbour into an attractive place to live.  

 

Two of the most notible quotes from the mayor are:

"Gondek says the focus isn’t a singular facility, but bringing an entire district to life."

"Gondek says this type of investment will invite other private investment like hotels and residential towers. She says all Calgarians stand to benefit from this type of project."

 

And you are right In the breakdown of the costs; the arena, the attached parking and the enclosed plaza will cost $849m.  This will be paid largely upfront by the city and then repaid back by a 35 year deal with the flames, that will see the team paying $734m over that span ($40 million upfront and $17 million per year (increasing 1% per year) over 35 years).  The team will also be required to donate $1.5m each year to community sports over that 35 year span ($52.5m).

 

Beyond the arena, the province is going to invest $300m to fund transportation improvements, land, infrastructure and site enabling costs, including off-site and on-site utility servicing costs, public realm, a new underpass below the CP rail right-of-way at 6th Street SE, and site clearing/demolition of the saddledome.  From the cities perspective, this is $300m that it didn't have coming in, largerly for work that was already planned to be done regardless of an arena deal, so that's a big win.