[Report] RT calls out ownership for no practice facility

[Petey Castiglione]

1 hour ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

If the Canucks are not using a practice facility for 1/2 the year. I'm finding it odd why this is such a big deal.

The coaches can't work with the players in the offseason, as it's against the players union rules.

(Hence why in spring during the playoffs when some Canucks coaches was attending a scrimmage with some Canucks players and the team got fined)

You can still go to UBC or any other year round facility. UBC has fitness facilities, gyms, and lots of students who are studying sports medicine etc. Until the summer break.

So why the big stink about a practice facility?

 

As par the course, we got fined and the NHL change the rule afterwards.  If the facility gives them a leg up, why fight it?

[stawns]

8 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

If the Canucks are not using a practice facility for 1/2 the year. I'm finding it odd why this is such a big deal.

The coaches can't work with the players in the offseason, as it's against the players union rules.

(Hence why in spring during the playoffs when some Canucks coaches was attending a scrimmage with some Canucks players and the team got fined)

You can still go to UBC or any other year round facility. UBC has fitness facilities, gyms, and lots of students who are studying sports medicine etc. Until the summer break.

So why the big stink about a practice facility?

 

Exactly.......whole lot of nothing here imo, with a large pinch of "whataboutism"

[canuck73_3]

11 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

They don't need a practice facility for the winter.  They can just use Rogers Arena.  Also, they'd be on the road for 50% of the time.  The practice facility would be mostly used in the off season...

And it snows that bad like one week every 5 years? 

Edited September 9, 2023 by canuck73_3

[stawns]

6 hours ago, canuck73_3 said:

And it snows that bad like one week every 5 years? 

I think he means that during the season they don't actually practice very often and when they do, it's likely Rogers arena.  

[Steamer4GM]

On 8/30/2023 at 9:39 PM, Citizen Erased said:

It’s closer to 10 every day. That’s what happens when driving instructors take bribes.

Instructors don't give out licenses. Are you talking about the ICBC road test staff?

[canuck73_3]

47 minutes ago, stawns said:

I think he means that during the season they don't actually practice very often and when they do, it's likely Rogers arena.  

well it would be the practice facility if we had one as well. 

[dougieL]

19 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

They don't need a practice facility for the winter.  They can just use Rogers Arena.  Also, they'd be on the road for 50% of the time.  The practice facility would be mostly used in the off season...

I thought one of the main uses of a practice rink during the season is to have a place to practice while the visiting team practices at Rogers Arena.

 

[Elias Pettersson]

12 minutes ago, dougieL said:

I thought one of the main uses of a practice rink during the season is to have a place to practice while the visiting team practices at Rogers Arena.

 

This is true. But how often would that overlap?  Some teams come in the night before and don’t even practice. Wasn’t Tocchet’s biggest complaint last year that the team never had enough practice time between games?  
 

At the end of the day, SFU would be totally fine. They are looking to get an NCAA Division 1 team so they would be looking to build a state of the art  arena. They have the space to do it with the empty parking lot that was going to be used for the Olympic Oval. The issue of players having to travel there in the winter is a small minor detail that can be worked around with using Rogers Arena instead during those times. 
 

The Canucks used to practise at 8 rinks for years. These players all have vehicles and are not practicing during rush hours so travel to and from SFU is really a minor problem in the grand scheme of things. 

[dougieL]

16 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

This is true. But how often would that overlap?  Some teams come in the night before and don’t even practice. Wasn’t Tocchet’s biggest complaint last year that the team never had enough practice time between games?  
 

At the end of the day, SFU would be totally fine. They are looking to get an NCAA Division 1 team so they would be looking to build a state of the art  arena. They have the space to do it with the empty parking lot that was going to be used for the Olympic Oval. The issue of players having to travel there in the winter is a small minor detail that can be worked around with using Rogers Arena instead during those times. 
 

The Canucks used to practise at 8 rinks for years. These players all have vehicles and are not practicing during rush hours so travel to and from SFU is really a minor problem in the grand scheme of things. 

 

I'm not sure how often they'd overlap, but given how close the margins are and how much is riding on every game, I would think any kind of overlap would be highly undesirable. Players are giving it everything they have - I'd think it's only fair for the organization to give them every advantage (or remove every disadvantage) that they reasonably can.

 

Same thing with the location of the practice facility - sure, you CAN have a practice facility that is far away, but is that actually desirable for the players? If it's a nearly 30min drive from Rogers Arena, that's almost one hour round trip. Add that up over the season, it can get pretty annoying. I know I personally hate commuting. If even a few players need to be super-dialed to play at their best, and doing this commute over the course of the season makes it hard for them to get dialed, is SFU the best place to put the practice arena?

 

Another point is - SFU and UBC are similar drive-times from Rogers, but is that where players will be commuting from? I'd imagine they would (at least) sometimes commute to and from home. While some players probably live near Rogers, I suspect there are also many players who live much closer to UBC than to SFU.

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by dougieL

[dougieL]

I still don't understand - what is stopping them from building a practice rink below the parkade in Rogers Arena? Is it cost, or is it actually a feasibility issue?

Edited September 10, 2023 by dougieL

[Elias Pettersson]

19 minutes ago, dougieL said:

 

I'm not sure how often they'd overlap, but given how close the margins are and how much is riding on every game, I would think any kind of overlap would be highly undesirable. Players are giving it everything they have - I'd think it's only fair for the organization to give them every advantage (or remove every disadvantage) that they reasonably can.

 

Same thing with the location of the practice facility - sure, you CAN have a practice facility that is far away, but is that actually desirable for the players? If it's a nearly 30min drive from Rogers Arena, that's almost one hour round trip. Add that up over the season, it can get pretty annoying. I know I personally hate commuting. If even a few players need to be super-dialed to play at their best, and doing this commute over the course of the season makes it hard for them to get dialed, is SFU the best place to put the practice arena?

 

Another point is - SFU and UBC are similar drive-times from Rogers, but is that where players will be commuting from? I'd imagine they would (at least) sometimes commute to and from home. While some players probably live near Rogers, I suspect there are also many players who live much closer to UBC than to SFU.

 

 

Of course UBC would be more desirable at the end of the day given everything else all being equal. But maybe UBC isn’t interested in the idea.  So it’s a moot point then. And there is no empty land available to buy and build a practice facility close to Rogers Arena. You are talking about some of the most expensive land in North America. 
 

The Plaza of Nations is going ahead with the public rink no matter what. So Aquilini can always go back to them. It won’t be built for at least 3 years so there is lots of time to negotiate a deal with the developer. 

[dougieL]

13 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Of course UBC would be more desirable at the end of the day given everything else all being equal. But maybe UBC isn’t interested in the idea.  So it’s a moot point then. And there is no empty land available to buy and build a practice facility close to Rogers Arena. You are talking about some of the most expensive land in North America. 
 

The Plaza of Nations is going ahead with the public rink no matter what. So Aquilini can always go back to them. It won’t be built for at least 3 years so there is lots of time to negotiate a deal with the developer. 

Yep, fair enough. I was just wondering why you were comparing drive times from UBC/SFU to Rogers Arena when it seems most players would be commuting to and from their homes.

 

Land is indeed expensive, which is why I don't know why they don't seem to be considering building the practice rink below Rogers. I'm sure more complex engineering feats have been performed.

[stawns]

1 hour ago, dougieL said:

I thought one of the main uses of a practice rink during the season is to have a place to practice while the visiting team practices at Rogers Arena.

 

Unless they're laying over for a day or two, the most a visiting team would do it a morning skate on GameDay.

[dougieL]

4 minutes ago, stawns said:

Unless they're laying over for a day or two, the most a visiting team would do it a morning skate on GameDay.

But then where would the Canucks do their morning skate on game days?

[stawns]

Well, a game day skate isn't a long practice, both teams can do get it done pretty quickly

 

[24K PureCool]

19 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

If the Canucks are not using a practice facility for 1/2 the year. I'm finding it odd why this is such a big deal.

The coaches can't work with the players in the offseason, as it's against the players union rules.

(Hence why in spring during the playoffs when some Canucks coaches was attending a scrimmage with some Canucks players and the team got fined)

You can still go to UBC or any other year round facility. UBC has fitness facilities, gyms, and lots of students who are studying sports medicine etc. Until the summer break.

So why the big stink about a practice facility?

 

The problem with going to UBC or 8 rinks when needed is that the team itself does not own any dressing room or storage space in it resulting it players having to warm up and dress at Rogers and bussing to the rink and the equipment people having to pack and lag around everything they might need from Rogers and back. 

 

In essence they lack the ability to store anything and have the state of the art medical and training facilities at UBC or 8 rinks. 

 

They would also have to schedule around other people as the Canucks are not the primary resident if the rink while ideally they want others to schedule around them to give the team the most flexibility.

 

Any new practice facility would have 2 sheets of ice with one that will always be available to the team while the other can be used by the community or college teams. 

[Elias Pettersson]

32 minutes ago, dougieL said:

Yep, fair enough. I was just wondering why you were comparing drive times from UBC/SFU to Rogers Arena when it seems most players would be commuting to and from their homes.

 

Land is indeed expensive, which is why I don't know why they don't seem to be considering building the practice rink below Rogers. I'm sure more complex engineering feats have been performed.

I'm not sure how you are going to get a rink to be built underneath an already existing rink.  How would that be possible?  The building is almost 30 years old.  I doubt it has the infrastructure to accomplish such a feat.  I'm sure, Aquilini, as a developer, has already looked into this, as it would save him millions if he could actually do it...

[dougieL]

7 minutes ago, stawns said:

Well, a game day skate isn't a long practice, both teams can do get it done pretty quickly

 

But assuming the visiting team has first dibs on the time, we'd basically be at the scheduling mercy of the other team...

 

I wonder if there is any way to find out how many times the Canucks practiced/skated away from Rogers Arena last season. Seeing as how many teams around the league have a permanent practice facility (I think we're one of only two that don't), it seems that having a permanent one has to be important.

 

 

[Primal Optimist]

On 8/30/2023 at 6:35 PM, grandmaster said:

This is absolutely disgusting. We’ve had so many issues with slow starts killing our last couple seasons and now this? 
 

I’m so angry right now!

 

This is an ongoing thing that may explain why we have had so many slow starts? I too am always angry, but that is my secret. 

[dougieL]

1 minute ago, Elias Pettersson said:

I'm not sure how you are going to get a rink to be built underneath an already existing rink.  How would that be possible?  The building is almost 30 years old.  I doubt it has the infrastructure to accomplish such a feat.  I'm sure, Aquilini, as a developer, has already looked into this, as it would save him millions if he could actually do it...

There is a parkade below the rink. You'd build it below the parkade. I'm kind of spitballing here, but I'm sure there is precedent for adding a structure beneath an existing structure. There are buildings near Rogers that have parkades that extend farther below ground than the parkade at Rogers, so I would imagine the depth is not an issue.

 

I agree that Aquilini most likely would have looked into it. I'm wondering whether it's a cost or feasibility issue. Obviously, building it at SFU would be much cheaper than building it below Rogers Arena, as it would be far less complex of an operation.