SAINTS PRESERVE US

If They Build It You Should Blanche

Canada’s era of nation building through infrastructure ended in the mid-twentieth century with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 or maybe the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway in 1962. It’s just a slight exaggeration to posit that the great civic works undertaken over the past sixty years have been hockey arenas. Everything else, bridges, airports, ports, legislatures and federal buildings has been strictly maintenance or upgrades. Hockey rinks are expensive. Teams are no different from any other subsidized industry: they love public seed money for private profit.

The City of Calgary this week announced plans for a new downtown arena. Other stakeholders in the deal are the corporate entity that owns the Flames hockey club and the Alberta government. The estimated cost of the new facility is $1.2-billion. When the city and the Flames last tried to reach a deal in 2021, talks broke off because neither party could agree on how to split the projected $634-million tab plus a dangling $10-million environmental fee. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has cheerfully anted up $330-million for this latest deal on behalf of all Albertans who file income taxes. And here I was wondering why the Banshee of Invermectin’s finance minister chose not to stand for reelection on May 29.

This provincial carrot, compliments of the United Conservative Party (UCP), comes with a significant caveat, the result of the impending Alberta election. The UCP government knows its fate will be decided in Calgary. Coincidentally, the government also announced plans for a new research centre for Calgary’s children’s hospital. Coincidentally, the government is now running a social media campaign heralding provincially funded upgrades to Deerfoot Trail, Calgary’s major north-south artery.

Financial details of the Flames’ arena deal as published range from scant to vague because the agreement is confidential. Perhaps there will be a reveal party May 30. Nobody expects any cost overruns and therefore none of the parties know who will cover them except it won’t be the Flames. And they will come, as they must, like a mudslide or an avalanche. A cautionary tale ripped from this week’s headlines: The Montreal Port Authority announced the projected 2023 cost of a proposed new container terminal will be $1.4-billion (you can buy a hockey rink for that); the 2019 estimate was $950-million (there was a time you could buy two hockey rinks for that). The culprits are inflation and rising costs for construction materials and wages, each exacerbated by delay further exacerbated by a labour shortage.

The Calgary Flames have called the Scotiabank Saddledome (corporate naming rights have switched hands through the decades) home for forty years. The building opened in 1983. It was built combining federal, provincial and municipal funds in anticipation of Calgary winning its bid to host the 1988 Winter Olympics. The original construction estimate was $60-million. The final total was in excess of $97-million. The rink is considered decrepit by current National Hockey League standards. Private boxes cannot be sold as luxury suites. The ‘Dome’s fan amenities are deemed inadequate in these days of competitive entertainment dollar acquisition. Punters are thought to require distractions from actual game action so they may pretend they’re home in their dens or hanging out in their favourite sports bar; they will likely spin fruit machines for additional UCP plums in the on-site casino. Meanwhile, Calgary’s civic council somehow and rather brilliantly finessed UCP electioneering to dodge an expensive headache: Alberta will fund the city owned relic’s demolition.

The Edmonton Oilers abandoned Rexall Place following the 2015-16 NHL season, the club stiffed its hometown. The disused arena became Edmonton’s own 24 Sussex Drive, decayed, crumbling and vermin infested. Council’s recent decision to demolish it was the cheapest option. Rogers Place opened its doors in 2016. The estimated cost was $450-million, the amount to be shared by the Oilers ownership group, the City of Edmonton and venue attendees who would pay a user fee atop ticket prices. No provincial money was involved. The Progressive Conservative government at the time was very aware of a second corporate panhandler three hours down Highway 2. Anyway, the next election was already in the bag. The Oiler’s pitch to city council was slick: downtown hockey real estate would spur further development of the core. The hook inside the bait was pretty clear about which negotiating party would end up with those development rights. The coyness of Calgary’s arena announcement suggests a similar side deal has been cut with a very interested party whose own interests may be more aligned with private good than the public good. Overruns drove the net cost of Rogers Place north of $483-million.

Hockey arenas are like household appliances destined for the kitchen or the laundry room: sleek, expensive and not built to last. A brand new NHL arena, state of the art at the opening face off of its inaugural game and perhaps the most expensive structure in town, constructed at the behest of an entertainment conglomerate whose head office is in New York City, will be viewed as obsolete within a few decades. Just a quarter century after moving a little further east downtown from the Forum, the Montreal Canadiens are muttering about their ageing rink, this after they’ve erected a condominium tower on the public plaza (fans were granted the opportunity to purchase individually inscribed paving bricks) that was featured so prominently in the initial architectural renderings. And what were Quebec City and Hamilton thinking when they built arenas on spec as proof of their expressed interest in the unlikelihood of being granted an expansion franchise by the NHL? Those two newish buildings won’t cut it now.

The Oilers and the Flames have always been the big time strutters in their respective cities. Without their presence, Edmonton and Calgary would be just a couple of unremarkable prairie towns. They consistently employ this arrogant attitude of entitlement to extort any and every conceivable financial concession from the hosts. Every negotiation begins with, “Gee, it would be a crying shame should we be forced to move to Oklahoma City.” Because Canadian fans tend to view hockey through the soft focus lens of a Tim Hortons commercial which blurs the value of the sport and the values of the sports business, no Alberta politician at any level with any skin in the game has ever said: “Good luck with that. Have fun coughing up the NHL’s relocation fees and starting over. Maybe you could change your nickname to the Bombers?”

Just as you pay for your house, just as railways pay for their roundhouses, the Calgary Flames can pay for theirs. But why should they if they don’t have to? The big lie is that a subsidized pro hockey team graces its host city with multiple intangible cultural and economic blessings. You will find the micro version of this story in the sports pages, ink about the interchangeable fourth line grinder who’s “great in the room” because he warrants so little ice time. The team’s play is for any amount of public money that will dilute private risk. The con is ceding ownership of what will be a depreciating capital asset to the municipality in exchange for management rights. Let the City of Calgary collect property taxes for prime real estate from itself. The final score is Flames won, Calgary and Alberta zero, and as for the UCP, we shall see. 

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source bemused askance since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format from various retailers.