Today we visit the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and their classic SaskTel Centre!
History:
SaskTel Centre (formerly Credit Union Centre, and originally Saskatchewan Place; informally also known as Sask Place) is an arena located in the Agriplace Industrial Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. With 15,195 permanent stadium seats, and situated near the city's northern entrance, the facility opened in February 1988 with a seating capacity of around 7,800. It was expanded to 11,330 for the World Junior Hockey Championships in 1990. Additional permanent seating was added in 2008 and 2009. The current capacity is 15,190 for hockey. It is the home venue of the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League, the Saskatchewan Rattlers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League and the Saskatchewan Rush of the National Lacrosse League, with the arena being referred to as Co-op Field at SaskTel Centre during Rush games as per a separate sponsorship with Saskatoon Co-op. The ashes of Saskatoon-born Detroit Red Wings player Gordie Howe, as well as those of his wife Colleen Howe, are buried at the base of a statue of Howe outside SaskTel Centre's main entrance.
SaskPlace was constructed as a replacement for the Saskatoon Arena, a concrete building constructed in Saskatoon's downtown core in the 1930s, and which was in use until 1988, hosting its final hockey game only a week before SaskPlace opened. Nicknamed "The Barn", the facility had outlived its usefulness some 20 years earlier and had become infamous for leaky roofs and substandard amenities, yet Saskatonians were hesitant to lose the landmark and a number of years passed between the 1970s proposal to replace the structure and the eventual demolition of the Arena and the opening of SaskPlace. In 1982, Bill Hunter, a local sports promoter, attempted to purchase the St. Louis Blues NHL team and bring it to Saskatoon. Part of his plan included building an 18,000-seat arena. Two locations were suggested: the site of a decommissioned power plant downtown, just west of the then-present Saskatoon Arena, and another site east of the city's airport in the North Industrial area. Despite Hunter's best efforts, the NHL rejected his offer and Hunter's plans to relocate an NHL team and build a new arena collapsed.
The site eventually chosen for the arena was initially, and still is, unpopular with most Saskatoon residents. Situated in the remote Agri Place industrial park at the north end of the city, accessible only via highways 11 and 16 and Marquis Drive, SaskPlace was accused of being too inconvenient for seniors and people of limited transportation to access, as opposed to the original downtown arena site which was close to most bus routes. The city's original plan was to relocate Saskatoon's exhibition grounds alongside SaskPlace as well, but this proposal was defeated in a civic plebiscite following public protest over access and safety concerns. At the time of construction, there were very few businesses and services located in the immediate area. As of 2016, the surrounding area has expanded, but the lack of fan amenities that most would find in other cities, such as nearby bars and restaurants, remains. A Motel 6 was the first hotel to be built near the arena, in 2004. A second hotel was constructed in the early 2010s.
Plans to build interchanges on the two major access routes into the facility were announced soon after the arena opened. However, these plans never developed, with the city and province instead opting to install a set of traffic lights at Marquis Drive and Highway 16 only 27 years after the arena's opening. Near-sighted planning on behalf of the city at the time of construction has led to traffic severely backing up after large-scale events in recent years. In the early 2000s, Saunders Avenue, a street leading into the parking lot of Credit Union Centre, was renamed Bill Hunter Avenue in honour of Bill Hunter, who died in 2002. This was considered ironic by many Saskatonians, given Hunter lobbied for the facility to be built in another location near the old Saskatoon Arena. The city then transferred the 'Saunders' name to a new street in the River Landing redevelopment area—running through the former site of the Saskatoon Arena.
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Music
Song: Promise Don't Forget
Artist: Jones Meadow
Courtesy Of: https://www.epidemicsound.com
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaskTel...
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