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Sensational Saddledome helped define Calgary
Robert Remington
Calgary Herald
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Twenty-five years ago this week, on Oct. 15, 1983, the Calgary Flames lost their season home opener 4-3 to the dreaded Edmonton Oilers.
For Calgary fans, the loss was tempered by the first star of the game -- not a player, but a building. The nearly $100-million Olympic Saddledome made its debut to oohs and aahs, an architectural wonder that became an instant icon on the city's skyline.
After three seasons in the old Stampede Corral, the Flames were now in a cutting-edge facility that two years earlier had cemented the city's bid for the 1988 Winter Olympics.
The Saddledome also gave the city a desperately needed morale boost. Calgary was in a gloomy state in 1983 as a boom-gone-bust caused the city to record a population decrease -- to 620,692 -- for the first time.
Today, the iconic Pengrowth Saddledome is the sixth-oldest arena in the National Hockey League and facing replacement. The Flames' management contract for the facility expires in 2014, by which time the team hopes to be in a new building, possibly next to the LRT station on the Stampede grounds. The Saddledome could be decommissioned, demolished or converted to another use.
Demolished? Many would beg for it not to be. Surprisingly, the man who designed the building is not among them.
"I have mixed emotions. I really like the building, but I realize things don't last forever," says Barry Graham, the Saddledome's now-retired lead architect. "If it has to come down, take it down. Don't leave it up for the wrong reasons." Even storied Yankee Stadium is destined for the wreckers ball, Graham notes. "You do what you have to do." Although its design is a perfect image for Calgary, Graham and his team never set out to build a stadium with a western theme.
Graham McCourt Architects, now GEC Architecture, was experimenting with a number of designs that would fit the multi-use building's technical and budgetary requirements when the saddle shape "just happened." "There are a lot of factors that go into a building -- acoustics, air volume, mechanical systems, camera positions, structural design," Graham explains. "We were exploring all the options. We did not want to do just another arena barn. The sense of the team was to do something special. It had to be unique in form, character and function, but there was no comment about making a western statement." Working with British structural engineer Jan Bobrowski, whose firm still lists the Saddledome on its website, the design team came up with the concept of a roof made of precast concrete panels supported by a net of cables.
"Think of it as a giant tennis racket, a grid of cables, and on this net you drop these concrete panels," says Graham. "It was a tricky system to build because you had to maintain the proper tension on the cables throughout the roof's construction." When the design was unveiled, people immediately began referring to the building's saddle-shaped roof. A contest to name the building attracted 1,270 entries, 735 of which had some mention of the word saddle.
Rejected names included Olympiad, The White Hat, the Megadome and the Calgary Paddock. The winning entry, drawn from a hat with similar saddle names, came from Bev Ritchie, a 43-year-old building maintenance worker from Calgary, and his son, Darrel, 23. They won season tickets to the Flames for two years.
Not everyone was thrilled with the new name, however, including Calgary's Olympic Organizing Committee (OCO). "It is neither Olympic nor western, and it's not even dome," said Frank King, the OCO chairman at the time.
True, domes are convex. This was concave. But the Olympic Saddle Reverse Hyperbolic Paraboloid -- the roof's correct mathematical description -- just didn't have much of a ring to it.
Giving birth to Calgary's Olympic Coliseum, as it was referred to in its earliest days, was political, controversial and tumultuous.
In 1980, Calgary brothers Byron and Darryl Seaman were leading a charge to obtain the Atlanta Flames NHL franchise for Calgary. The city was also preparing a bid for the 1988 Winter Games, which would be awarded in the fall of 1981. A new arena would help land both.
Calgary got the Flames franchise that year, but the Olympic bid hung in the balance. Time was of the essence.
Airdrie was pitched and rejected as a new arena site. The old Firestone plant at Memorial Drive and Deerfoot Trail, owned by a Bavarian land developer, was also considered. Fort Calgary, the city's most important historical site, was considered and rejected, as was a site at Nose Creek, north of the zoo.
The search was narrowed to three spots -- the Stampede grounds, a west downtown location at 14th Street and Bow Trail and another near the East Village. Although a consultant recommended the west downtown site as the least disruptive to surrounding communities, the Stampede was selected because the land was available and the clock was ticking.
Residents of Victoria Park launched an unsuccessful lawsuit. Construction began in July 1981, which impressed the International Olympic Committee.
"The fact that this facility was already being built added credibility to (Calgary's) bid and proved to be a positive factor in demonstrating Calgary's commitment to hosting the Games," according to the XV Olympic Winter Games official report.
Construction was fast-tracked, a process that led to loose cost control. When the arena came in eight months late and $16 million over budget, accusations flew, an investigation was launched, and Calgary and Alberta taxpayers were ultimately left on the hook.
The Saddledome hit the cover of Time magazine on Sept. 27, 1987. The construction and architectural world went ga-ga, bestowing the designers with several architectural and engineering awards. Technical magazines wrote about it in detail,. The Saddledome's floating roof, which can compensate for Calgary's rapid fluctuations in temperature by moving 7.5 centimetres in any direction, was the talk of the town in the arcane world of the post-tension pre-stressed concrete industry.
Although it cost $97.7 million, the interior volume of the building is 55 per cent less than a building with a traditional horizontal roof, resulting in reduced heating, lighting and maintenance costs. The Saddledome is believed to still hold the world record for the longest spanning hyperbolic paraboloid concrete shell. That matters little in the competitive economics of professional sport, with its ever-increasing demand for luxury boxes and more seats.
Ken King, the Calgary Flames president and CEO, says the organization has concepts and designs for a new arena, but it is not ready to reveal them.
The new structure, he says, is a "complex of facilities that our city needs." Although approached to move to a suburban location, the team prefers to remain at Stampede Park or downtown.
"It will be a centrepiece, a gathering place for our city," says King.
He is well aware that many Calgarians have an emotional attachment to the Saddledome, which has helped to define the city. "We understand and appreciate the romantic attachments to it, but in the longer term, it needs to be replaced. A new stadium would be a wonderful thing to have." - - - By the numbers- Seating capacity: 19,289- First game: Oct. 15, 1983 Flames vs. Oilers, Flames lost 4-3- Number of luxury suites: 72- First concert: Moody Blues Nov. 25, 1983- Most frequent performer: Rod Stewart, 11 concerts- Size of concourse: 30,071 square metres- Other names: Olympic Saddledome (1983-96) Canadian Airlines Saddledome (1996-2000)- Cost of construction: $100 million
rremington@theherald.canwest.com
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1st in a series
Updated July 9, 2006 - excerpt from a story about Stampede Expansion in the Calgary Herald.