In the past few seasons, the Edmonton Oilers have been on the road to recovery. Ever since their magical trip to the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals against the eventual champion Carolina Hurricanes, the team has been building through the draft. Their stockpile of highly offensive forwards has made the future of Oiler hockey quite bright. Their recent surprise of winning the 1st overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft promises that the product on the ice will be one to watch for many years to come.
The one thing that Edmonton often had trouble with while developing their team on the ice was convincing the Edmonton city council of helping them fund a new arena off the ice. In a unveiling today, the public was able to catch a first glimpse of the proposed design for the $450 million dollar facility.
According to CBC News, the proposed arena will hold around 18,400 people for games while roughly 9,000 of those fans will be seated closer to the action in the lower bowl. The arena will likely incorporate a sky terrace for those who wish to move around during all the action. As an added bonus, the “Oil drop” will be attached to a community rink if the developers can strategically fund another $21 million.
Overall, the new rink looks to be a guaranteed hat trick if the messy details of funding can be ironed out. It is estimated that the planning committees still need to split the burden of final $100 million in development costs. Where that money comes from will be anyone’s guess.
Watch the fly through video of the proposed arena below:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=
K3ZS-ubkHhg[/youtube]
Let your imagination run wild Oiler fans. Can you picture a summer that includes Nail Yakupov AND a new arena wrapped tightly in an early Christmas gift? If it all works out, that bright future will be here sooner than later.
What are your thoughts of the proposed arena? Do you like the Oil drop design or is this something that you’d only see in movies?
