cross16

I agree to a point. The issues should be a separate debate because the clean should be done whether or not CalgaryNext gets built I agree there. However, to clean it up AND build CalgaryNext means you are now asking for a siginifance amount of public money PLUS using up a large chunk of what is very viable and likely pricey land the city could be selling to developers. The city has to decide do we pay for the cleanup, yes imo irregardless of CalgaryNext, then pay 100s of millions for the arena, and lose that land to a building they will own and make little money off of. That's why I think you have to consider the costs lumped together

Thats interesting because based on the proposal it looks like there would be a walking bridge from the Sunalta train station right to the arena and it would be a shorter walk than it currently is. I'd be curious to know that persons opinion. Maybe because it's on the slower of the 2 transit lines (SW to NW more popular) and would require more people transferring? i have read a large concern is the parking because so far the CalgaryNext proposal hasn't demonstrated where parking would be. It would require a complete rework of the traffic on the area though, specifically the crowchild bridge, but a lot of that is already being discussed. Not sure if city has allocated funds though

I don't even think it relates to the economy. Even in a good economy it's never a smart idea to spend as much public money on a project like this as the flames were asking for. I think the only way this works, especially in West Village, is of then flames contribute much more to the project. I think if the deal was an arena/stadium/clean up project, no fieldhouse, and the city picked up the tap on the clean up plus another 300million, via CRL, to the project and the flames find a way to finance the rest I think you would have a workable deal.

King is a business man and this is business. Without a new arena the Flames won't be as economically viable as they need to be so they will need to find a way to be economically viable (although I would challenge King to find a better business market than Calgary) so that all makes sense. I have no problem with that. Here is why I'm so disappointed in him. It's been almost 10 years since the idea of wanting a new building was discussed, believe it was around 2008, for the Flames and King to put forward a proposal. It's taken the city less than 2 to have a discussion, mostly because I think the proposal wasn't a strong one on the financing side, but now King is playing the "well if we aren't wanted...." card. He is trying to push it back on the City like it is their fault and "doesn't understand why its taken so long" but yet it was them that took so long to come up with the proposal. I don't believe this is a "threat" and I don't believe for a second the Flames will move it just continues to disappoint me how King is handling this. Part of the reason the Dome is so old and they are playing in it is their own fault so I just don't like how quickly he is trying to dump this on the city. Especially given they asked for a crazy amount of public money to begin with.

Im not surprised at all but to me it's dissapointing he is willing to resort to this low already. Especially when I don't think he put forward a very good idea to begin with, especially on the financing side. Just to be clear I fully recognize he is not making a direct threat and is just suggesting the possibilities. It's just disappointing this has to be out there at this point and that he has to go there.

Just in case anyone still wants to give King credit for how he has handled the arena project, or suggest he is acting in a "classy" way.... now it is April Fools, but in his radio interview the other day King did hint several times that relocating the team was something they would have to look at if they weren't going to get the support on their project. So while this article might be a joke, the threat is not. The radio link if people want to hear further. No direct threat but a lot of not so subtle hints that he is prepared to talk moving the team over the project.

The Creosote cleanup costs have been estimated to be between 85-150 million depending on how quickly the city wants it done. http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/toxic-creosote-in-calgarys-west-village-not-our-problem-says-domtar I woudln't say so personally, only becuase I don't see the value in spending the money to clean up the land, give up the future property tax revenue, just so they can move an Arena from Victoria Park to West Village. Might as well stay in Victoria Park and let the city develop West Village on its own. I think the main attraction to CalgaryNext, at least for me, is the idea of moving a Stadium downtown so if you are not going to do that I personally don't find value in the arena being there. City of Calgary has had plans to build a fieldhouse long before CalgaryNext came around and have already budgeted (but not funded) 200million to do so and yes the existing City plans called for a roof. http://www.calgary.ca/CSPS/Recreation/Documents/Research-and-development/Concept-plan-full.pdf CalgaryNext pulled this into their project as way to try and "save" the city money and get more public funding for the building without appearing as they were taking as much from the tax payer. It can be cleaned up yes just depends on how long you want to wait and how much you want to spend. Above articled I linked, and form what I remember about the report, as that it would be between 85 - 150 million. The 85 million option could take upwards of 7-8 years however before the land was ready to be built upon while the $150 million would take around 4-6 years. Worth noting, that CalgaryNext disputes this data but to date has not gone public with their own data or own survey to demonstrate it.

You can still build an arena/stadium without the fieldhouse so I don't see the need to have the field house in west village. It was only a ploy by King and Co to put it in there so it looks like the project isn't taking as much tax payer dollars as it is. Continuing talking about the west Village is fine by me but just take the fieldhouse out and put it where it should go.

Great except Sait and MRU don't have the facilities nor the athletes that U of C does. Servicing them is irrelevant.

Are you thinking of Sait? Because the west village is much more than "across the river" from the U of all C. The point of a field house is the development of amateur sport, track and field etc. The vast majroty of those athletes are housed at the u of c and have support facilities at the u of c. So it doesn't make sense to me that you are going to build something that far away from the group you are trying to support.

Why is it in poor taste? The province did not fund Rogers Arena, Edmonton City Council foot the bill on that one. Negotiations were between Katz and the City of Edmonton, province as not involved. The wait is more likely because they bought the Stamps and went back to the drawing board, but again Edm had a concept for a new area I think within a year of Katz buying the Oilers. Should not have taken King and co over 3/4 years to introduce a concept, and what was happening in Edm should have had no baring on what they were doing. YOu can't predict the highs and the lows but you can predict that Alberta is a boom bust economy and that commodities run in cycles. There was no way OIl was staying at over $100/barrell. I talked to multiple people in o/G that new eventually the price would correct, that's just the nature of a commodity. when you are asking for public funds its much better to build when they actually have them. Governements get the most stressed in a downturn so while yes you can save some, but not alot, of money building in a downturn, the likelihood you will get public funds decreases. That was key to this project, not saving money on the construction of it. It is prime land once the contaminated land is cleaned up, which the Flames are not paying for by the way and yes Council has said they will be cleaning the land up irregardless of Calgary Next. 200million is less than 20% of the cost of this project so sorry i'm not giving the Flames credit for offering $200 million and it would not go very far at all in cleaning up the land. The purpose of a field house is the further training and developing of amateur athletes. That training is currently done at the U of C and the support facilities for that are at the U of C so a proper field house needs to be at U of C as well. A downtown location makes very little sense for a fieldhouse Sure and it is fine that they only went public with their preferred proposal but to have no ideas or plan B is a pretty big fail in my books when it comes to planning. And properly executed business plan should have a backup.

Took King over 5 years, since he first started discussing an arena project, to come up with something he could take to public. Was "really close" 3 years ago and then waits another 3 and sees Alberta dip into recession and then decides to unvail the proposal. (Don't try and argue with me that no one could predict the recession. It's Alberta it was going to happen). Why does it take over 5 years? picks the contamantied land and didn't not even know how much it would cost to clean it up. Asked for what is looking to be over 800 million of public funds and asking the city to give up prime real estate thst they would make significantly more on if they just sold it on their own and it wouldn't cost them 800 million either. Then proposes to build a field house in a horrible location and ignored the previous recommendations by the city and othere who were consulted on the building of a field house in Calgary in an effort to gain more public funds. Not to mention they still don't even have the proposal of what the arena would look like, they only have the concept and they had no plan b. After 5 years all you can put forward is a concept that is asking for over 800 million in public funds, didn't know all the details when you announce it AND you had no plan B I consider thst pretty poor. Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan of how Nenshi is handling this, but I'm much more upset with King.

I'm not voting for him again, but I think its as much time for a new President as it is a new Mayor. Disappointing there wasn't more discussion about the West village, but it was a pretty poor proposal put forward anyway, and with no plan B not sure how you can't categorize this as anything but an epic fail on the part of King.

I think Bartowski is fine as a bottom pairing dman, especially at the price tag they are paying him. He is an upgrade to Jokipakka who I don't think has good enough hockey sense to be an NHL dman. Jokipakka just doesn't not read the play well enough to play in the NHL for any length of time imo.

I'm happy he is coming here too and hopefully this is a precursor to him signing. Big, physical stay at home dman but with a decent first pass as well and someone who I think could transition quickly to the NA game. Mobility needs some work but it looked to be improving over the years. He adds a element the flames need in Stockton.

Ken king said the renderings they put out there were very rough and the end product was to be different so I wouldn't read into they much. I didn't love the translucent roof no, but they were designing A multi use facility not just an arena so I'm not sure what the benefits would have been.

I think he gets he fair share of blame for the players who don't work out. He gets his fair share of the blame in general imo but no GM is perfect. I think overall the body of work is more positive than negative and he has the club going in the right direction.

Calgary Next is dead yes, the flames have been told to look at plan B and they currently are drawing up plans and talking to the city about what that would look like. Plan B is building on the grounds where the saddle dome currently is but that's about the only option the flames have unless they wanted to build it well outside the downtown core, which is a horrible idea. And Calgary next was a good 2-3 years away from being shovel ready so it wasn't going to boost the economy anytime soon. Calgary Next is dead because ken king completely mismanaged the project. If you want to blame anyone, blame him. Edit: it's also been suggested that the reason it's moved behind closed doors is the Olympic bid. A successful Olympic bid may allow for the money from various levels of government to build it so they want to hold off on that process until they know the outcome of that. A bit far fetched imo but I have heard that

Mike Vernon. 11 games in a row.

Don't think they will wait that long. The West Village proposal is dead but they are actively working on Plan B and the city is engaged in that process.

Well they have 1 layer of luxury boxers and a 2nd row of boxes with 4 stuck in the corners. They can only charge luxury prices for the lower boxes and they don't even fully wrap around the whole arena. They are short a good 4-5 boxes they could add in a new arena, which is a lot of revenue as those boxes are pricey. either way its not my reasoning its the Flames. Whenever they speak of a new arena they always mention that they are behind the newer arenas in their ability to charge more premium prices because of the smaller lower bowl and being short on luxury boxes. They made it better than they use to be, but they are still behind what new arenas are building.

In comparison to new arenas and from a revenue perspective, the Saddledome lags behind in their premium seats, luxury boxes and the amenities. Dome has a smaller lower bowl than most and fewer luxury boxes which obviously come at a more premium price. That and newer="better" and therefore they can charge more. Not to mention it also would likely increase the franchise value which is very important to the NHL. that also ignoring the revenue aspect of concerts etc that are currently being missed but i'm not so sure how much of that the Flames would actually see because it would be a City owned building.

Bettman's job is to maximize revenues for the NHL. A new building in Calgary, which is definitely needed IMO and does not meet standards, means move money for the NHL. Bettman is doing his job.

Nit picking, but to clarify he actually signed an ATO with Adirondack. He'll play at the ECHL level not the AHL right now which makes sense to me. he may not be worth an AHL deal at this point. Some good attributes but he really hasn't taken steps forward offensively you would want to see. Give him a chance to maybe earn an AHL deal next year

Irregardless of my views of the talent level of RW, I think the cap prevents them from doing anything unless something falls in their lap. Need to address G and D first and once you do there will be limited resources available to bring in a "first line" RW. A foundational player likely isn't coming unless the steal one in the draft so for now I think you are best to save the money and try and match skill sets. Ferland doesn't have to be a true top like forward but if he helps that line maximize their potential, he fits just fine.