From the CBC website:
The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is calling Ottawa’s plans for the next Lansdowne Park arena “a huge step back,” warning it throws the financial viability of the Ottawa Charge into question.
The proposed event centre would seat only 5,850, according to the city’s director of the Lansdowne Park redevelopment project, Sean Moore, though he says added standing room would boost capacity to 6,600.
The 58-year-old arena currently has about 9,500 seats.
Apparently, progress in Ottawa comes with fewer seats. The city’s shiny Lansdowne 2.0 plan is rolling toward approval, and with it comes a sparkling new arena that somehow manages to hold 3,000 fewer people than the current one. Because nothing says “supporting women’s hockey” quite like making it harder for fans to watch women’s hockey.
The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) didn’t even bother to sugar-coat their reaction. The league’s brass called the downsized 5,850-seat venue “a huge step back,” and they’re right — that’s not a step, it’s a full-on moonwalk into mediocrity. Ottawa’s existing arena seats around 9,500, which just last season drew 8,348 fans for weekend games. Obviously someone in charge left their calculator at home.
PWHL executive Amy Scheer told the CBC the numbers make no sense for the Ottawa Charge. And she’s not wrong: cutting thousands of seats from a team that’s actually filling them is like closing half the lanes at rush hour because traffic’s finally moving. She called it “a tough pill to swallow.” Translation: “WTF?”
Meanwhile, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe—Ottawa’s self-appointed spokesperson for the “It’ll Be Fine Because I Say It Will Society”—insists this is just a negotiating tactic from “big powerful American businesspeople.” The PWHL, after all, is owned by billionaire Mark Walter, who also owns the L.A. Dodgers and a Formula One team. Sutcliffe’s message to the league was basically: don’t play hardball with City Hall, we invented bureaucracy and do stupid things all the time.
It’s an odd flex, considering Ottawa fans have already proven they’ll show up, cheer loudly, and buy the overpriced popcorn. Shrinking the arena feels less like smart urban planning and more like a “let’s hope no one notices” moment from the Parks & Recreation TV comedy.
And yet, this may not be about math at all — it’s about optics. Politicians love ribbon-cuttings with shiny renderings and buzzwords like “modern,” “accessible,” and “state-of-the-art.” But you can only call something “state-of-the-art” for so long before people finally walk in and notice it’s smaller than the building it replaced.
Fans aren’t fooled either. One season ticket holder told CBC the downsizing threatens to “bottleneck the growth” of women’s hockey in Ottawa. Translation: Stop pretending you’re supporting us while literally giving us less room.
Still, the mayor remains confident the new arena will offer an “amazing experience” — because apparently, atmosphere makes up for missing seats. He even floated the idea that the team might someday “outgrow” Lansdowne and move to the Canadian Tire Centre—an arena already despised by most Ottawans due to its “middle of nowhere” location. Gee thanks.
The PWHL insists they’re not ready to “drive the car off the bridge just yet.” But if Ottawa keeps confusing “revitalization” with “reduction,” they might need to start checking the GPS for alternate routes.
Because when the city’s big plan for women’s hockey boils down to smaller crowds, fewer fans, and lower revenue, you don’t need a hockey stick to see where this puck is headed — straight into their own net.
