Frank Clair Stadium
Encyclopedia
Frank Clair Stadium is a Canadian football
Canadian football
Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...

 stadium
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...

 in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is located in Lansdowne Park
Lansdowne Park
Lansdowne Park is a historic sports, exhibition and entertainment facility in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, owned by the City of Ottawa. It is located along Bank Street and is adjacent to the Rideau Canal, in central Ottawa...

, on the southern edge of The Glebe
The Glebe
The Glebe is a neighbourhood in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located just south of Ottawa's downtown area, with its northern border being demarcated by the Queensway highway. It is bounded by the Rideau Canal to the south and east. Many maps show the western edge as Bronson Avenue, but some also...

 neighbourhood, where Bank Street
Bank Street (Ottawa)
Bank Street is the major north-south road in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It runs south from Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa, south through the neighbourhoods of Centretown, The Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Alta Vista, Hunt Club, and then through the villages of Blossom Park, Leitrim, South...

 crosses the Rideau Canal
Rideau Canal
The Rideau Canal , also known as the Rideau Waterway, connects the city of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on the Ottawa River to the city of Kingston, Ontario on Lake Ontario. The canal was opened in 1832 as a precaution in case of war with the United States and is still in use today, with most of its...

.

Tenants

The stadium was the home of the Ottawa Rough Riders
Ottawa Rough Riders
The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. One of the oldest and longest lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine times. Their most dominant era was the 1960s and 1970s, a...

 of the Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

 from 1908 to 1996, when the team ceased operations. It was the home of the Ottawa Renegades
Ottawa Renegades
Ottawa Renegades was the most recent name of a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario founded in 2002, seven years after the storied Ottawa Rough Riders folded...

 from 2002 until 2005. A previous incarnation of the stadium served as the home venue of the Ottawa Giants
Ottawa Giants
The Ottawa Giants were a professional minor-league baseball team based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada that operated in 1951. The team was a relocation of an existing franchise, the Jersey City Giants...

 minor-league baseball franchise.

The stadium is also home to University of Ottawa
University of Ottawa
The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...

's Ottawa Gee-Gees, and prior to the disbanding of the Ravens
Carleton Ravens
The Carleton Ravens football team is a future varsity team that was approved for 2013 membership on July 6, 2011. The team will be a member of the Ontario University Athletics conference of Canadian Interuniversity Sport, returning football to Carleton University after a 15-year absence...

 football programme at Carleton University
Carleton University
Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...

 in 1998, was the site of the Panda Bowl, when these rivals played each other with rowdy fans hurling insults across both sides of the stadium. At the final Panda Bowl game in 1997, the year following the departure of the Riders from Ottawa, the game (forfeited) was marred by an accident when at least 25 students were injured when a section of railing collapsed.

The stadium has also been home to the Ottawa Junior Riders
Ottawa Junior Riders
The Ottawa Junior Riders are a Canadian football team based in the Nepean area of Ottawa. The team began operations in 1995 as the Gloucester Redskins, and operated as such until the conclusion of the 1996 QJFL season...

 of the Quebec Junior Football League
Quebec Junior Football League
The Quebec Junior Football League operated from 1970 to the present, as a successor to the Quebec Juvenile Football League. It began competition as a conference of the Canadian Junior Football League from which it eventually withdrew. Upon withdrawal from the CJFL, the QJFL incorporated teams from...

 and the Ottawa Bootleggers of the Empire Football League.

History

A grandstand was built on the north side of the playing field in 1908, as part of the Ottawa Exposition Grounds. It was demolished in the 1960s to build the current Civic Centre complex. The new north-side stands are located on the roof of the adjacent Ottawa Civic Centre
Ottawa Civic Centre
The Ottawa Civic Centre, also known as the J. Benson Cartage Centre for 2011–2012, is an indoor arena located in Ottawa, Ontario, seating 9,862. With temporary seating and standing room it can hold 10,585. Opened in December 1967, it is used primarily for sports, including curling, figure skating,...

 hockey arena. A small grandstand was built in the 1920s on the south-side of the field, and it was replaced in 1960. A second deck for the south-side was added during the 1970s. As of 2008, prior to lower south-side demolition, the overall stadium had a 30,927 capacity for football. The lower section of the south-side stands, the section built in 1960, was demolished in July 2008. The upper section of the south-side stands were demolished from November 2011 to January 2012.

During the 1976 Summer Olympics
1976 Summer Olympics
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...

 in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, the stadium hosted four football (soccer)
Football at the 1976 Summer Olympics
Final results for the Football competition at the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Sherbrooke. Groups A, C and D had only three teams instead of four, as Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia national teams adhered to African-led boycott of the Games against the participation of New...

  matches.

For many years, the stadium was known simply as Lansdowne Park, after the fairgrounds in which it was located. It was renamed in 1993 to honour Frank Clair
Frank Clair
Frank James Clair was a coach in the Canadian Football League, nicknamed "the Professor" for his ability to recognize and develop talent. Clair is the 3rd all-time winningest head coach in the CFL with 147 wins and the winningest head coach in the post-season with 27 vistories...

, coach and general manager for the Ottawa Rough Riders during the 1960s and 1970s.

Demolition proposal

In the late 1990s, the stadium was threatened with demolition when then-mayor Jim Watson led a drive by the municipal government to allow a private developer to reconfigure Lansdowne Park. The proposals submitted all called for residences to be built on the site of the football stadium. Massive public opposition and the realization that the end of the stadium would mean the end of hopes to return CFL football to the capital led the regional government to step in and end the scheme.

Future

In September 2007, the lower south side was closed, due to cracks in the concrete structure. After the closure of the stands, ex-Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien
Larry O'Brien (Canadian politician)
Lawrence Robert O'Brien , was the 58th mayor of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is also a current director of Calian Technologies Ltd. and its former CEO and chairman....

 was quoted at the time that this was an opportunity to do a review of the usage and the facilities of Lansdowne Park. Subsequently a process was started called "Design Lansdowne" to get public consultations on the Park and the stadium. After an engineering study of the north-side and south-side grandstands, the south-side stands were condemned. The lower section of the stands was demolished by controlled implosion on July 20, 2008 at 8:03 AM.

During the summer of 2008, a consortium of investors was formed to pursue a new CFL team in Ottawa. They bid successfully and received a conditional franchise from the CFL, with the condition that the stadium would need to be upgraded before the franchise could be activated. Jeff Hunt
Jeff Hunt
Jeff Hunt is a Canadian businessman who currently owns the Ottawa 67's hockey club of the Ontario Hockey League. He started a carpet-cleaning firm called Canway. His firm was in the Profit Magazine 100 seven times in the 1990s.-OHL Hockey:...

, one of the principal investors and owner of the Ottawa 67's
Ottawa 67's
The Ottawa 67’s are a junior ice hockey team based in Ottawa, Ontario. They have played in the Ontario Hockey League since 1967, Canada's centennial year. The current coach is Chris Byrne.-History:...

 who play in the attached Urbandale Centre, says the venue and location are ideal, with over a million people in Ottawa. The organization has reportedly already pre-sold 5,000 season tickets.

In the fall of 2008, the consortium, known as Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, (OSEG) approached the City with a plan to redevelop Lansdowne Park and rebuild the stadium using the proceeds from turning a section of the park into commercial and retail space. The plan, entitled Lansdowne Live! was ambitious and included plans to redevelop all sections of the park. The City, which had received a competing stadium proposal for Kanata, reviewed the plans and agreed to a conditional agreement with OSEG. OSEG would concentrate on the stadium and commercial/residential precinct, and Ottawa would return the rest of Lansdowne Park to green space. Faced with opposition to the plan, the City proceeded slowly with the proposal, seeking out legal opinions, traffic studies, and a urban park design competition for Lansdowne.
In June of 2010 it was announced that the Ottawa City Council had approved a redevelopment plan put forward by the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) to renovate Frank Clair Stadium and build 350000 sq ft (32,516.1 m²). of commercial retail space as well as 250 housing units and an urban park on the site. The stadium, which is the catalyst to bringing the CFL back to Ottawa will be rent-free to developers for 30 years. Proceeds from the retail and commercial precinct would be shared, and the retail and commercial precinct brought under City control after 30 years. Completion of the stadium is scheduled for 2014, with the overall development finished in 2015.

The OSEG proposal for the stadium envisioned tearing down all of the south-side stands, replacing the stands with a new structure with private boxes and a unique wood-wrapping around the exterior. The north-side stands would be renovated to current standards, and the north-side exterior expanded to include a retail component. In September 2010, the Ottawa Fury joined the plan to redevelop Lansdowne. The Fury is seeking a professional soccer franchise to start play in 2013 at Frank Clair Stadium.
In November 2011, demolition of the rest of the south side stands started. The contract to demolish the stands was awarded for $550,000. Unlike the lower stands, the upper stands structure is being demolished piece-by-piece rather than controlled implosion. The concrete and steel from the structure is to be recycled, and seats will be re-used at a new rink at Ottawa City Hall. Demolition is expected to be complete by January 2012.

Major events

Frank Clair Stadium has played host to five Grey Cup
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4 million individuals...

 games, the first occasion being in 1925 when Ottawa won its first Grey Cup title. It later held Grey Cup games in 1939, 1967
55th Grey Cup
The 55th Grey Cup was played between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Saskatchewan Roughriders on December 2, 1967, at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, before 31,358 fans and was won by the Tiger-Cats by a score of 24 to 1.- Box Score :First Quarter...

, and 1988
76th Grey Cup
The 76th Grey Cup was the 1988 Canadian Football League championship game that was played at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, between the BC Lions and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Blue Bombers defeated the favoured Lions 22-21...

, before playing host to the 92nd Grey Cup
92nd Grey Cup
The 92nd Grey Cup game took place on November 21, 2004, at Frank Clair Stadium in Ottawa, Ontario. The game decided the championship of the 2004 Canadian Football League season...

 in 2004, in which the Toronto Argonauts
Toronto Argonauts
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...

 defeated the BC Lions
BC Lions
The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team competing in the West Division of Canadian Football League . Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Lions play their home games at BC Place Stadium in Downtown Vancouver, having previously played at Empire Stadium in East Vancouver from 1954...

 to become the 2004 CFL Champions. It is again set to host the Grey Cup in 2014
102nd Grey Cup
The 102nd Grey Cup for Canadian football will be played to decide the champion for the 2014 CFL season. If it follows recent history of playing the fourth Sunday of November, it will be played on November 23, 2014.-Host city:...

.

During the winter months, a private company rents the field and places an inflated dome over the field area, renting the covered/heated surface for use by amateur sports teams.

In 1976, the stadium hosted some preliminary soccer matches for the Montreal Olympic Games.

In mid 2007, the stadium was one of six hosts in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup
2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup
The 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the sixteenth edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup , hosted by Canada from June 30 to July 22, 2007. Argentina defeated Czech Republic in the title game by the score of 2–1, thus managing a back-to-back world title, its fifth in the past seven editions, and sixth...

. Capacity is now listed at 26,559.

The last major concert at the stadium was in 2005, when The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

performed in front of a crowd of 43,000.

External links

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