Events: Hockey

Venue Capacity: 18,810

Cost: $160 million (original cost in 1995/privately financed)

Status: Existing

Opened: September 17, 1995

Elevation: 8 metres

Distance: 2km from Vancouver Athletes' Village

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games hockey tournaments will take place in two venues -- Canada Hockey Place and the UBC Thunderbird Arena.

Canada Hockey Place, known outside the Olympic Games as General Motors Place, will be the main hockey venue at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. It was completed in 1995 and privately financed to be the home of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks and NBA's then Vancouver Grizzlies. The arena has 88 luxury suites, 12 hospitality suites and 2195 club seats. In 2006, Canada Hockey Place was upgraded with an LED ribbon board encircling the upper bowl and a brand new state of the art high-definition scoreboard overhanging centre ice. 

When Vancouver originally won the right to host the 2010 Games, the plan was to renovate Canada Hockey Place to accommodate an international-sized ice surface for the Winter Games that would have forced the removal of seats in the arena. But on June 7, 2006, VANOC and the International Ice Hockey Federation announced they had cancelled the ice renovation plans and the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament would be played, for the first time, on NHL-sized ice. The new plan saved VANOC $10 million in renovations and will allow 35,000 more spectators into Canada Hockey Place over the duration of the tournament. Additional locker rooms will be built as part of the venue preparations for the Games.

General Motors Place has played host to international hockey before. The 2006 World Junior Hockey Championships were held in Vancouver, which saw Canada win the tournament. Russia's Evgeni Malkin was named tournament MVP.

Since August 1995, the Vancouver Canucks Hockey Club and General Motors Place had been operated by Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment. In November 2004, the Aquilini Investment Group, led by brothers, Francesco, Roberto and Paolo Aquilini purchased 50 percent of the hockey club and General Motors Place from then owner John E. McCaw Jr. Two years later, in November, 2006, the Aquilini's purchased the remaining 50 percent of both the Canucks and General Motors Place.

The Aquilini Investment Group is a diversified family business founded more than 50 years ago by Mr. Luigi Aquilini. The Vancouver-based company owns and manages a national real estate portfolio that includes commercial properties, office buildings, hotels, golf courses, and cranberry and blueberry farms, as well as the development and sale of multi-family residences and condominiums.

In January 2008, Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment was renamed to Canucks Sports and Entertainment.

Figures

Venue architect: Brisbin, Brook and Beynon