New Rogers Arena seats still on the way, Canucks say (2024)

If you’ve attended a concert this summer at Rogers Arena, you might have noticed the building’s 29-year-old maroon seats remain in place.

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Other than the block of black seats installed as a new VIP section before last hockey season, there’s little evidence the new seats are on their way.

Revitalizing the home of the Vancouver Canucks has been on the team’s agenda for some time and fans are well aware of this. So it’s no surprise they’re wondering when new seats will finally show up.

A year ago, the team introduced a brand-new, state-of-the-art scoreboard and video system, as well as the new set of VIP seats behind the team benches.

At the same time, after years of saying the seats were fine, the team’s ownership finally acknowledged that new seats were needed. Many of the seats, most of which have been in place since before the arena opened in 1995, have little padding left, making for a less impressive experience, especially given the high ticket prices now charged to watch NHL action.

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“Where are the new seats, time is ticking for the new season,” Canucks fan Darren Alexander asked Postmedia on Thursday night. He was at Rogers Arena for the Tyler Childers concert.

He was at Game 7 between the Canucks and Edmonton Oilers in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in May and from his seats on Thursday high up in Section 312, nothing had changed.

But the team is on course to replace the seats by next summer, a team spokesperson said Friday.

“Same plan as outlined in our March 4 release: it’s a two-year window to get the job done so we’re still on the same plan as announced,” they said.

That announcement seemed to confirm that installation of new seats would begin this summer — and sources said previously that the seats would be replaced in two waves, in the summers of 2024 and then 2025 — but that may not be the case.

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“Last August, ownership committed to replacing all seats in the building, and we confirm that we are proceeding with that investment,” the Canucks’ president of business operations Michael Doyle said in that March 4 statement.

“The project, which will begin when the hockey season is over, is something our members and fans have been requesting for some time, and we understand its importance. With our new seating and our new state-of-the-art videoboard installed, when you step into the Rogers Arena bowl, it will feel like you are in a new building.”

The seat replacement was billed by the team as the third and final phase of a $150-million revitalization of the arena, which began with renovations of team spaces in the summer of 2022.

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pjohnston@postmedia.com

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