Melrose Munch
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- Mar 18, 2007
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http://blogs.theprovince.com/2011/09/13/an-nhl-team-in-the-tacoma-dome/
Seattle coming faster than we think?
Seattle coming faster than we think?
The Tacoma Dome is a geodesic dome in the southern Puget Sound city of Tacoma. Designed by the legendary Buckminster Fuller, the dome seats an improbable 17,000 people for hockey. It was home to the expansion Tacoma Rockets from 1991 to 1995, before common sense prevailed and the team was moved from their geodesic home to Kelowna.
Ray Marcham says: The Tacoma Dome is the ultimate multi-purpose arena - and, frankly, not good for any sport. It hosts American football, soccer, basketball, hockey and indoor soccer. The side seats for Rockets games were horrible - the pitch was too shallow. The "front row" of seats were still 50 feet away from the ice, and the arena floor was the main concourse. There were four rows of temp seats set up along the boards to try and give it a "real" hockey feel, but it didn't work. There are no corner seats, as the seating is much like an old-style English football stadium. Except when Tacoma played Seattle, they didn't draw well. There was a reason they went to Kelowna as fast as they could.
Of course this would be a temp site.
Because the NHL wants in now.So why not just wait then? Instead of pouring millions of dollars into this as a temporary spot to play, just wait a few years until a new arena is built.
Although it seems to me they're talking about renovating this place as a permanent home for a team.
QC would be good for Canada and me personally but the PR disaster - the NHL is failing in the US- would be some kind of nasty.None of this is a surprise to me. I knew as soon as we heard a few months ago that the NHL was talking to people in Seattle about a potential team going there that somehow this was going to get done. Since then there's been Levin who's said he wants to bring a team there. Then we here that Seattle is considered by the League as a potential NHL site. And now this.
Seattle/Tacoma will be the Phoenix out, not Quebec City!
You hear a cheer going up!
Just to show everybody, this is what the hockey set-up for the Tacoma Dome is.
I've seen WCHL hockey at the Tacoma Dome. It was...what's a good word for it?..."difficult".
So why not just wait then? Instead of pouring millions of dollars into this as a temporary spot to play, just wait a few years until a new arena is built.
Although it seems to me they're talking about renovating this place as a permanent home for a team.
Not really seeing how any amount of money could turn this...
... into a proper NHL venue. Maybe, just maybe as a temp site as a new arena's being built, but not buying it as a permanent home.
seattle losing the sonics seemed to have more to do with the key arena (or whatever its called) than any lack of fan support.
It's a long story. The short version is that then Sonics owner Barry Ackerly didn't want an NHL team taking money away from his team so Key Arena was built into an NBA only arena.
Look where that got everyone.
you seem to have more insight into this than i do, do the people in seattle really want an nhl team? or do they just want the NBA back?
Well, the Spurs played in the Alamodome, and the Lightning played at freaking Tropicana Field for three years waiting on the SPT Forum, so I don't see why this couldn't be set up to work as a temporary facility if Glendale suddenly decides to stop covering the Coyotes' losses.