"This project here is going to raise the bar," Dan Vaillant of ICON Venue Group, the project manager

Brian Burke frank on arena issue: ‘There is one building (in the NHL) worse than ours’   Flames president of hockey operations calls Saddledome embarrassing as the finest state-of-the-art 1988 building in the (NHL)
“An update on our new home? You know what? We need a new building. Obviously, everyone knows that,” said Burke, president of hockey operations for the Flames, responding to a question from the audience. “We have the finest state-of-the-art 1988 building in the (National Hockey League).”
“You know what’s embarrassing?” said Burke. “There is one building worse than ours. Has anyone been there? tour bus company Islanders (who play out of dilapidated Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum). So we don’t actually have the worst building in the National Hockey tour bus company League. But we have a state-of-the-art 1988 building.”
“A building has . . . to generate NHL economics, which our building does not,” said Burke. “Lower tour bus company bowl in a new arena — in the new generation of arenas — is 9,000 seats, minimum. Ours is what — 6,000? So we’re not generating the revenue that an NHL building does. The sightlines aren’t as good. They’ve got better suites in the new buildings, better amenities for our season-ticket holders and our fans.
“And, more importantly, tour bus company the investment in a building and what it brings to a downtown core in terms of entertainment . . . a lot of bands don’t come and play the Saddledome because the building is antiquated. The weight load that the roof will bear is tiny, so a lot of big stage acts don’t come here.
“This project here is going to raise the bar,” Dan Vaillant of ICON Venue Group, the project manager, told the Edmonton Journal earlier this week. “It’s going to be the building that the next NHL team is going to look to and try to better.”
“I’m not worried,” he said. “I’m not sure politically where things lie because I’m new here, but, in my mind, it has to happen. And it’s going to happen. I think it makes sense on every front. You don’t have to be a hockey fan to want a new building in Calgary.
Brian Burke, President of Hockey Operations for the Calgary Flames, talks at a Calgary Chamber event at the Hyatt Regency on Thursday. Photograph tour bus company by: Crystal Schick       E-mail this Gallery Print this Gallery Share this Gallery
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