Calgary: More than just a hockey town
By Elizabeth Chorney-Booth
I’ve been following conversations about this arena thing and have noticed a lot of people say “the bars and restaurants around the arena need a state-of-the-art facility and a NHL hockey game to survive.” As someone who runs with a few restaurant types, I know that game night can bring in much-needed business. But I am also tired of suburbanites saying that downtown will “die” because no one comes into the core for anything but Flames games and Garth Brooks concerts.
If their assertion is true (and I don’t think it is), we have a much bigger problem in this city than deciding whether or not to publicly fund an arena. Saying “we can’t/won’t/don’t support downtown businesses if we’re not going to be downtown for a hockey game anyway” is hugely problematic.
If these people are pretending to care so much about downtown businesses that they think taxpayers need to pay for this entire arena, perhaps they should come to Downtown/the Beltline/Vic Park/the East Village/Inglewood/Bridgeland on the regular to attend things like Beakerhead, go to Wordfest events at the library, see smaller concerts, attend CIFF screenings, go to plays at Arts Commons, or, if they aren’t interested in those things, just eat or have a drink at the local businesses that they claim to be so invested in protecting.
If we want our city to grow and be “world class” we need to support the people who are working hard to make it more than just a hockey town. If you can’t be bothered to hop on a C-Train or get in your car (and parking is generally cheap/free after 6 in the core) to support these things, don’t pretend that your foremost concern in rolling over for the Flames owners is “supporting Calgary’s economy.”
(And also… please. The Flames ownership don’t care about the surrounding bars and restaurants. They want to move the project to the “West Village” where there are no bars and restaurants to speak of. If you think that they wouldn’t prefer to have ticket holders come directly from the train into their building to drink their beer and eat their food and then go straight back to the ‘burbs, I have some primo creosote-contaminated land by the Greyhound station that I’d love to sell you.)
