Renovations to the Canucks’ team spaces at Rogers Arena are in the works and plans for a practice rink are advancing, Jim Rutherford says.
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What’s old is new again in the land of the Vancouver Canucks.
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Tuesday, Jim Rutherford, the team’s president of hockey operations, revealed that not only is the team back in the hunt for a new practice facility — an idea nearly as old as the ownership tenure of the Aquilini family — but renovations and improvements to the team’s off-ice spaces in the bowels of Rogers Arena are in the works.
“We have an older facility. I think overall the people here have done a good job of maintaining the facility. But you’ve been in the locker-room, it’s outdated, and it certainly needs to be updated and it helps in recruiting and, more importantly, it gives the present players here just a better feel when they’re in the building,” he said.
“And the more the present players like it here and spread the world the word on what it’s like to play in Vancouver, it really helps recruiting a lot.”
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There will also be renovations to the office spaces and workout rooms across the hall from the current Canucks’ dressing room, which will also see the Norm Jewison Media Centre, the media workroom that has also hosted news conferences since the very first days of the building’s operations, relocated.
“It’s going to be changed in a more workable way for the medical staff and coaching staff and where the players work out and all that,” Rutherford explained.
He said that the Abbotsford Center would see some renovations as well, though the options were more limited because of the building’s structure.
If Rutherford’s comments rang familiar, consider these that former general manager Mike Gillis made to Postmedia News in March 2011, just under three years since he had been hired and less than two years since the dressing room and other off-ice spaces had been renovated to its current state:
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“The plan was to reinvest in areas that had either been neglected or never fully developed,Gillis said. “I thought Vancouver was never on the A-list of teams and to get on that A-list we had to do things differently. We had to make sure people knew they’d be coming to a place that was dedicated to winning. That was the key message and the strategy hasn’t changed.”
In those days, Gillis said he had never been denied a spending request. But it’s well-known that in recent years controlling spending on off-ice amenities and facilities had been limited.
No longer the case, it seems.
“He really wants to do it. There was no twisting arms here, trying to convince him, ”Rutherford said of his discussions of him with ownership about spending. “My relationship with Francesco (Aquilini) from the day he came to my house has been terrific.
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“I have let us do our job here. When we need something, there’s no pushback on it. And he’s pretty excited about, if there’s such a thing, spending money on adding these things.”
As for the practice rink, more than a decade ago the Aquilinis and their senior executives pitched a plan to build a rink and community center to the City of Vancouver when the initial redevelopment plans for northeast False Creek were being formed.
Later they signed a partnership with Canadian Metropolitan Properties (CMP), who are redeveloping the former Plaza of Nations site across Pacific Boulevard from Rogers Arena, to operate a planned arena on the grounds, which was planned to be completed sometime between 2023 and 2025.
But that deal fell apart, with CMP pointing their finger across the street but not saying exactly what went wrong.
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Whatever the reason, the Canucks were back to Square 1, leaving them in a small group of teams who don’t have a dedicated practice rink.
From 1995 to 2010, the Canucks had a permanent presence at Burnaby 8 Rinks, now known as Scotia Barn.
From 2010 to 2019, the Canucks had an agreement with the University of BC to use the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center when needed — like when there’s a concert booked at Rogers and the ice has to be covered over — but switched back to Scotia Barn in 2019. (The Canucks have also used UBC to host their summer development camps.)
But the team has been merely visitors to Scotia Barn and UBC, not permanent tenants.
And so, on Tuesday, Rutherford returned to a topic he first broached a few months ago, the need for a permanent practice rink: “The other priority and we’re gaining momentum on it, is the practice rink.”
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According to Rutherford, president of business operations Michael Doyle has been working hard on securing a plan and that the process is down to two or three options, with a final decision close.
What the possible locations might be isn’t clear, though Aquilini Development, the Aquilini family’s property company, is partnered on a pair of different projects that might suit the parameters, being relatively close to where most players live in Vancouver and on the North Shore .
Aquilini Development is partnered with the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations to redevelop the former BC Liquor Distribution Branch site at East Broadway and Rupert streets in Vancouver; they’re also partnered with the Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations to redevelop a property at Willingdon and Canada Way in Burnaby across from the BC Institute of Technology.
But both those properties are very early in the planning stages and neither has any suggestion of a rink being in the plans at the moment. If those locales are in consideration, it will be many years before the team has a permanent practice home.
