An Ice Hockey Wiki article.

General Motors Place
The Garage
Location	800 Griffiths Way, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 6G1
Opened	1995
Owner	Canucks Sports & Entertainment
Operator	Canucks Sports & Entertainment
Construction cost	$160 million
Architect	Brisbin, Brook and Beynon
Tenants	Vancouver Canucks (NHL) (1995-present) Vancouver Grizzlies (National Basketball Association) (1995-2001) Vancouver Ravens (National Lacrosse League) (2001-2004) Vancouver Voodoo (Roller Hockey International) (1996)
Capacity	Ice hockey: 18,630 Basketball: 19,193 Concert: 14,000

General Motors Place, commonly known as GM Place and nicknamed The Garage, is an indoor arena, located at 800 Griffiths Way in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The arena is home to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League. The arena is sponsored by General Motors Canada. As corporate sponsors are unable to brand sporting venues during the Olympics, GM Place will be temporarily renamed Canada Hockey Place during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, in February 2010.

The arena seats 18,630 for ice hockey and 19,193 for basketball. It has 88 luxury suites, 12 hospitality suites, and 2,195 club seats.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Entertainment upgrades 2 Future major events 3 External links

History

GM Place was completed in 1995 at a cost of $160 million in private financing to replace the aging Pacific Coliseum as the main venue for events in Vancouver and to serve as the home arena to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League and the Vancouver Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association. The Grizzlies spent six seasons in Vancouver before moving to Memphis, Tennessee for the 2001-02 season.

The arena was briefly home to the Vancouver Ravens of the National Lacrosse League from 2002 to 2004. The operations of the team have since been suspended. Attempts were made to revive the team in 2007 and again in 2008.

Entertainment upgrades

In mid-2006 GM Place was upgraded with a ProAd LED ribbon board encircling the upper bowl and shortly thereafter with a $5 million Daktronics ProStar LED scoreboard. The original Mitsubishi Mark IV displays needed to be removed since the worldwide supply of replacement parts was not large enough to keep them operating throughout the 2006-2007 hockey season.

The new LED scoreboard is built around four of the largest video displays in the NHL. Measuring 13.5 ft by 24 ft, they are capable of displaying widescreen images in 14-bit colours. Their size combined with their 10 mm pixel spacing gives them an image that is unrivaled in any NHL arena. The corners hold 5.5 ft, by 13.5 ft. displays with two ring displays each capping the top and bottom. The entire scoreboard weighs 49,000 lbs, 2% less than the one it replaced. The normally three-week assembly period was completed in only one week and as a result there were some minor technical difficulties during the first home game.

Future major events

• GM Place will host the ice hockey events in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. These will be the first Olympic games to use NHL sized ice. This decision was made in order to maximize the potential crowds and revenue, instead of building a smaller, temporary venue with the international-size ice surface, as has been done for most other Winter Games. On July 2, 2003, 18,000 came to GM Place to hear the announcement that Vancouver was awarded the games. The Arena will be renamed to Canada Hockey Place for the 2010 Games.

External links

• General Motors Place Home Page
• General Motors Place at Hockeyarenas.net

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Preceded by Pacific Coliseum	Home of the Vancouver Canucks 1995 – present	Succeeded by current
Preceded by HP Pavilion at San Jose	Host of the NHL All-Star Game 1998	Succeeded by St. Pete Times Forum
Preceded by Torino Palasport Olimpico and Torino Esposizioni	Host of the Olympic Ice Hockey tournament with UBC Winter Sports Centre 2010	Succeeded by Bolshoi Ice Palace and Maly Ice Palace