BC Place Stadium

BC Place Stadium is Canada’s first domed stadium. It is located on the north side of False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia and home to the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League and the regions largest consumer shows, trade shows and special events. It is owned and operated by PavCo (BC Pavilion Corporation), a Crown Corporation of the government in the Province of British Columbia. BC Place will be the host of the opening, closing and nightly medal ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympic games.

	Capacity		59,841
	Opened		June 19th 1983
	Owner		Province of British Columbia

The stadium, completed in 1983, was built as part of the preparation for Expo 86. It is the world’s largest air-supported domed stadium and can seat 60,000 in its mixture of permanent and portable light-blue plastic seats.

Currently, its main sports tenant is the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League; formerly, it was the home of the Vancouver Whitecaps of the North American Soccer League, who occupied it in the early 80s. The Whitecaps played the first sporting event in the stadium in 1983, against the Seattle Sounders.

The stadium hosted Grey Cup games in 1983, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1994, 1999, and 2005, perhaps the most thrilling account being the 1994 one in which the hometown Lions defeated the U.S. expansion team Baltimore Football Club on a last-second field goal, preventing the Grey Cup trophy from leaving Canada (although Baltimore would win the Grey Cup the following year).

In 1987, an exhibition match of Australian Rules Football was played at the stadium and drew a crowd of 32,789 – a record for the largest AFL/VFL crowd outside of Australia.

The stadium will be the first indoor Olympic Stadium as the venue for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The stadium has a FieldTurf surface that was purchased from Montreal’s Olympic Stadium for $1 million CDN. BC Place has been the home to the CFL’s B.C. Lions since 1983, and will serve as the site for both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. A monument commemorating Terry Fox is located outside the stadium, as well as a smaller monument commemorating Percy Williams.

(source .. wikipedia) reproduced under GFDL

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BC Place Stadium website
BC Place Stadium wikipedia entry
British Columbia Lions website
lionbackers.com fansite

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