Executives from the Professional Women’s Hockey League say there is not enough seating in the arena planned as part of the Lansdowne 2.0 project.
Jayna Hefford, the league’s executive vice-president of hockey operations and Amy Scheer, executive vice-president of business operations, say they favour revamping the arena but warned that the Ottawa Charge team needs more than the 5,850 seats currently being proposed.
“[It] is not enough,” Scheer told a Finance and Corporate Services Committee meeting on Oct. 29.
“Even with even with great lease agreement, where it’s good for OSEG and it’s good for us, there’s still not enough seats,” she said.
“Ultimately in the lease negotiations for the new Lansdowne 2.0, we could not get to a point where it was possible for the Charge to be profitable,” said Scheer.
“We are asking for a seat at the table,” Scheer said. “We were told that they (OSEG) needed our support at that time and that capacity would be discussed at a later date.”
Some councillors were sympathetic. Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Laura Bradley says she opposes the Lansdowne 2.0 proposal, in part because “seating is reduced in both the stadium and arena, failing to accommodate the growing fan base of the Women’s Hockey Team the Ottawa Charge.” Capital Coun. Shawn Menard made a similar point in an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen.
But Orléans West-Innes Coun. Laura Dudas said during the meeting that bringing up these concerns so late was “blowing up” the project.
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper asked Scheer whether raising ticket prices would help compensate for the smaller number of seats.
“To be profitable, we would,” Scheer replied. “But I don’t think that’s what we want to be known for. We want to be a place where you could take your family and your kids and not feel like you’re paying for a second mortgage.”
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said that, longer-term, the question of capacity at Lansdowne could be moot.
“Realistically, if you continue to grow, you’ll be going beyond 8,500 fans,” said Sutcliffe.
“You drew 11,000 fans to a game at the Canadian Tire Centre already. So it’s not unrealistic to think if you had a great schedule, you could be drawing 11,000 fans, 12,000 fans a game. In which case you wouldn’t fit in an 8,400-8,500 seat facility anyway, right?”
“If we get there that would be great for women’s sports but I think we’ve also committed that we want to be in Lansdowne and we want to be in the city.”
Before the meeting Wednesday, the city manager warned, in a memo, that any changes to the Landsowne 2.0 plan would add up to $100 million in costs and delay the project two to three years.
