Multi-purpose Stadium - History in Canada

History in Canada

In Canada several large multi-sport stadiums were built during this style's heyday. However, unlike in the United States, there has never been an NFL team based primarily in Canada (though, currently the Buffalo Bills play some home games in Toronto) and there have only ever been two MLB teams, so teams from these leagues have not been the major impetus behind stadium construction (with the notable exception of Toronto). Instead, stadiums were built primarily for Canadian Football League teams and to host multi-sport events, such as the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Pan-American Games.

Three of Canada's largest stadiums from this era and type feature domed roofs or retractable roofs, namely BC Place in Vancouver, SkyDome/Rogers Centre in Toronto, and Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

BC Place is capable of hosting baseball but has been primarily a football venue. Rogers Centre was built to accommodate baseball (MLB's Toronto Blue Jays play there), but has also been a football venue its entire life. Montreal's Olympic Stadium was built primarily for a multi-sport event (the 1976 Summer Olympics, during which it hosted the track and field events and the soccer final) rather than for professional team sports, but it later became the home of the Montreal Alouettes football team and the Montreal Expos baseball team, and began serving as an alternate home to the Montreal Impact when that team entered Major League Soccer in 2012. Similarly the open-air Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton was constructed for the 1978 Commonwealth Games but has also become home of the Edmonton Eskimos of the CFL. It has also hosted many soccer events, as well as the 2003 Heritage Classic, the first major outdoor ice hockey event in Canada. Pan American Stadium, set to begin construction in 2013, is being primarily built for the 2015 Pan American Games, but is also being constructed with the purposes of being the new home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats football team; its predecessor, Ivor Wynne Stadium, was originally built for the first Commonwealth Games.

Other Canadian cities never expressed interest in building a venue for Major League Baseball or the Summer Olympics, and felt no need to replace their smaller open-air stadiums used mostly for Canadian football. For example, Calgary's open-air McMahon Stadium dates from 1960 and has been used only for Canadian football, the 1988 Winter Olympics, and an outdoor ice hockey event (the 2011 Heritage Classic). Similar situations hold in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Regina. There are no large stadiums of any kind in cities like Quebec City, London, or Saskatoon, or in Atlantic Canada; in those places (with the exception of Saskatoon), smaller stadiums (less than 13,000 seats) exist that can be augmented with temporary seating to bring their capacities close to that of the smaller CFL stadiums.