Air Canada Centre

From Free net encyclopedia

The Air Canada Centre is an arena at 40 Bay Street, in downtown Toronto, Ontario. It is owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., and is 665,000 square feet (62,000 m²) in size. It is the official home of the NBA's Toronto Raptors, the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, and the NLL's Toronto Rock. It was also home to the Toronto Phantoms of the Arena Football League during their brief existence.

An early nickname for the venue was "The Hangar" due to the corporate sponsor of the arena, Air Canada. However this name was never quite adapted by the general public. The Air Canada Centre is most commonly referred to as simply "the A.C.C." and has been referenced as such on the official Air Canada Centre website.

1 History
2 Best Buy Theatre
3 Future Renovations
4 See also
5 External links

[edit]

History

Air Canada Centre was originally intended to be a basketball facility for the Toronto Raptors. The Maple Leafs, at the time, were looking at building their own new arena at a different location. When the Raptors were sold to Maple Leaf Sports and Entertaiment, the new ownership had the building redesigned as a multifunction arena. Besides not having to find other Real Estate, the Maple Leafs would also be able to move out of the outdated Maple Leaf Gardens building. The redesign was completed and Air Canada Centre's groundbreaking was performed in February of 1997.

The site was once occupied by the Canada Post Delivery Building. The current building retained the striking facades of the east and south walls of that structure, but the rest of the building was removed to make room for the arena.

The 15 storey tower stands at 55 metres.

Its opening NHL game saw the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. the Montreal Canadiens on February 20, 1999; its opening NBA game saw the Toronto Raptors vs. the Vancouver Grizzlies on February 21, 1999. In 2000, it hosted the NHL allstar game.

In 2004, the Air Canada Centre played host to WWE SummerSlam, where Randy Orton defeated Chris Benoit to win the World Heavyweight Championship, making Orton the youngest Champion in WWE History. It also hosted a rare Canadian WCW pay-per-view, WCW Mayhem, in 1999.

The first major championship for a Toronto-based team won at the Air Canada Centre was on May 14, 2005, when the Toronto Rock beat the Arizona Sting to win the National Lacrosse League Champion's Cup. Team Canada had defeated Team Finland there a few months earlier to capture the 2004 World Cup of Hockey on September 14th 2004.

The highest attended event at the arena was on June 23rd 2003, when folk-rock legend Neil Young performed in front of 23,000 fans. This concert was "over-sold".

In September 2006, The Air Canada Centre will host WWE Unforgiven.

[edit]

Best Buy Theatre

Located within the Air Canada Centre is the 5,200-seat Best Buy Theatre, used for theatre concerts, Broadway and family shows, and other events. It was formally called the Sears Theatre and is also known as the "Theatre at ACC".

[edit]

Future Renovations

In late 2005, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment announced that they would be renovating the south side of the Air Canada Centre during the 2008 offseason, to connect it with the future Maple Leaf Square development.

[edit]