[b]MONTREAL -- In the unlikely event that the Montreal Alouettes play host to a playoff game, it will not be held at Olympic Stadium, the CFL club announced Tuesday.The game would be played at the team’s 25,000-seat home field, Percival Molson Stadium.
The club has used the domed, roughly 55,000-seat Olympic Stadium for home playoff games since 2008.
The Alouettes (4-8) are third in the East Division, four points behind second-place Hamilton (6-6). They would need to overtake the Tiger-Cats, who they meet twice more this season, to play host to the East semifinal.
Alouettes chief operating officer Mark Weightman said the team opted for its outdoor field because of concerns a snowfall could postpone the match in the Big O.
http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=432642
Olympic Stadium cannot be used if it snows due to an unstable roof.[/b]
That must be a call by the Als and not the Olympic stadium board.
It was announced last week that they will play a MLB game there in March.
I guess the Blue Jays or MLB will have to decide what to do if the stadium can't be used if it snows which seems to be a stadium issue not any league or team issue.
At any rate, I think the Als are doing the wise thing, last thing you would want to do is have to cancel a game or move it at the last minute with all the preparations involved for game planning indoors vs outdoors, field quality differences etc.
And if there is snow or ice on the roof they will move the game to Rogers Center because there is no way they will allow anyone under that thing.
Season ticket holders don’t like it anyway. They won’t complain. Anyway I don’t think they have anything to worry about 
is the roof considered safe under a heavy or torrential rain?
The Big Owe nightmare continues it seems.
Our tax dollars hard at work.... :roll: :roll:
I don’t think it is safe under any circumstances but snow could easily kill someone. . There are 1300 rips that have been repaired but its held by multiple cables. So the problem is not so much the roof caving in like happened at BC Place. It would just have one massive hole and whatever is on the roof gets funneled in through the hole so if your underneath it is kind of like standing under and avalanche… They also collect on AVERAGE five tons of concrete a year that falls off. IMO one of the most dangerous buildings in the world to put a large crowd.
It's not like Olympic stadium really helped them out the last 2 years anyway lol.
HfxTC wrote: They also collect on AVERAGE five tons of concrete a year that falls offHoly s....t! :o
The article in TSN stated that it was the choice of the Als not to play there. Seems strange that only last week it was announced that there would be an MLB game there in March. They are probably going to keep an eye on the weather forecast, if they think there will be a snow storm they will cancel the game but if not they will play it.
According to the CBC they plan to replace the roof "by the end of 2013"
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/plans-to-replace-big-o-roof-expected-by-end-of-2013-1.1353627]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... -1.1353627[/url]It's only going to cost between $200 MILLION and $500 MILLION to put in a new roof!!
[url=http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/24/montreal-olympic-stadium-roof-rips/]http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/2013/0 ... roof-rips/[/url]Montreal could have a "lively" future with a new retractable roof on the stadium
[url=http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/13/montreal-olympic-stadium/]http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/13 ... c-stadium/[/url]With a deposit you can book anything you want in the place but in the contract they can cancel the event with 24 hours notice. An exhibition baseball game is not quite the same as a playoff football game in terms of rescheduling.
The place is a complete disaster. It hasn’t been build right, it was exposed to the elements for years, it has been poorly maintained. They had to increase the budget from 10 million to 20 million a year just to do the minimum maintenance to keep it from collapsing. Its built a top the largest underground parckade in Canada of which the roof caved in two years ago when the impact decided to dump their dirt on the site when they were building their stadium and also built right on top of a subway station on one of the two main lines commuting montrealers. So you can’t blow it up and you can’t let it collapse on its own either. And now it is unusable for appr. 4 months out of the year. It needs anywhere from 500m to a billion dollars in renovations. So the Quebec gov. will do what it always does and ignore the problem till it kills a bunch of people and then they will have a “Commission”. That’s how things work there :x
why then is the City/Province planning to replace the roof at a cost of up to $500 million when the structure is dilapidated and a glorious brand spanking new stadium could be built for the same cost?
makes no sense whatsoever.
Well the price was quoted before the Commission Charbonneau opened a can of whoopass on those firms. So fare its been proven that estimates were inflated 30 to 80 percent. So its probably more like 200 to 300 million. But since they can’t destroy it without disabling a vital part of the subway. The only choice is to repair it. They don’t want to but they don’t have the choice. What is really needed is a complete restoration like BC Place got. Poor new concrete slabs to reconfigure seating. (No use for that track, it hasn’t been used once since 76) new electronics. multimedia soundproofing, hvac, light tunnelling …etc…
That's disappointing
even $300 million could build a brand new top tier football venue similar to the one planned for Regina which is pegged to cost $287 million.
why can they not dismantle the stadium in pieces/sections and then rebuild anew?
Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton was taken down in this manner due to concerns over the residential perimeter that surrounds the stadium.
Its the cost.
The problem is dismantling it in pieces as you say will cost way more than 1 billion dollars for building a brand new state of the art stadium. Renovating and rebuilding the Big-O and making it the way it should've been made originally is the cheapest option.
Exactly. Its not practical, not cost effective and certainly not “green”. That stadium could be a jewel and the pride of Montreal. Kind of like finding a Split Window Corvetette and suggesting taking it to the wreckers… Just restore it, do it right.