The future of the Ottawa Charge as Lansdowne 2.0 breaks ground

Despite shovels going into the ground on Ottawa’s Lansdowne 2.0 development later this week, the Ottawa Charge women’s hockey team says they will not play at the new arena when it opens in 2028. 

Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of controversy over the state of women’s hockey in the Capital and how the new arena could impact its success after the PWHL team raised the alarm over the new arena’s smaller capacity.

Once built, the new arena will also be home to the Ottawa 67’s OHL hockey team. It will have capacity for about 6,600 fans, with about 900 of those spaces being standing-room-only. The current arena’s capacity is around 8,500.

Since playing their first game in Ottawa in 2023, the Charge PWHL team has seen soaring success with an average of nearly 7,000 fans, with even larger turnouts during weekend games. 

Data shows that many of the team’s games attract well over 7,000 fans. Last season, the Charge's top-attended game at TD Place saw 8,576 fans, according to Hockey News. There were also crowds of 8,424, 8,295, and 8,096 in the regular season, and crowds of 8,206, 8,011, and 7,282 in the playoffs. 

“Overall, Ottawa's home attendance average, excluding playoff games, was 6,888. If you add Ottawa's four home playoff games, the attendance average rises to 7,006,” reported Hockey News. 

On Nov. 18, less than two weeks after Lansdowne 2.0 passed in a 15-10 vote, Amy Scheer, the league’s executive director of business operations, held a press conference saying she felt the reduced capacity would take the team backwards. 

"We will not play in a 5,500-seat building,” she told reporters during a virtual media availability. "We will not play at Lansdowne 2.0 … That's the one option not on the table.”

When asked if the team would consider leaving Ottawa, Scheer said all options were on the table. 

"We chose Ottawa for a reason and the fans have been wonderfully supportive of us there, and we'd like to find a solution that works for us to stay in Ottawa," she said. "But the City hasn't made it easy for us and it's disappointing."

The Ottawa Charge began raising concerns about the team's fate just as city councillors were gearing up to vote on the $418.8-million renovation project. Scheer spoke before Ottawa’s planning and housing committee ahead of the vote and said a smaller building would not be able to sustain the team's projected growth into the future.  

Scheer also said that after working four decades in sports, the Lansdowne 2.0 decision “might be the most disappointing thing I have ever seen.”

“Over the last several decades, what you’ve seen across North America is stadiums being built that are too big for women but fit men,” Scheer said. “In…the most cruel twist of fate, we sit here today seeing the absolute reverse, where an arena is being built that is too small for women and perfect for the men.”

The Charge has also raised concerns about not being consulted ahead of the vote; City of Ottawa city manager Wendy Stephanson had a meeting with the PWHL to discuss the issues around capacity and the lease negotiations, and then shared their concerns with Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) president Mark Goudie in October.

At that time, Goudie said he had believed they were close to securing a five-year contract extension deal with the Charge, but the PWHL has said it cannot commit to an agreement beyond 2031 due to the teams’ agreement with players. 

OSEG says it “remains committed to working collaboratively with the PWHL” to ensure the women's hockey team can “thrive” in Ottawa. 

The City of Ottawa’s lobbyist registry shows a firm hired by the PWHL had multiple meetings with councillors and city staff prior to the vote, and exchanged emails. There were also two meetings between the lobbyists and Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s Director of Policy.

For Mayor Sutcliffe, the idea of the Charge leaving Lansdowne is not a bad thing; he has repeatedly said he wants the team’s success to get so big, they outgrow the TD Place arena.

“I don’t know that the Charge, if they continue to be successful, would be at that facility for the next 20 or 30 years anyway. They would probably outgrow it,” Sutcliffe told CTV.

The Mayor has also rebuked the team for not knowing about the reduced seating. He said conversations were first had in 2023 and that OSEG worked with the team to try and find room for more seats. 

Sutcliffe said he felt the team was using the moment to try and get a better deal with OSEG. 

"They're smart business people and they're using the leverage of this moment, as any smart business person would, to try to get the best deal they can for their business," Sutcliffe told TSN. "I respect that as a businessperson, but we're building an event centre that will have all kinds of different men's and women's sports playing in it in the future, we're not building an arena just for one team."

Sutcliffe’s comments have been criticized by hockey fans who have been holding up “size matters” signs during recent PWHL games. 

For the Charge’s long-term success, the new Ottawa Senators arena at LeBreton Flats could be the most viable option. But with an unclear timeline on construction, the team would first need to play at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata. 

While there are concerns about if the fan base would travel to another side of the city to catch a game, the Charge played there once before – and in fact sold more seats than Lansdowne’s current capacity. 

If all goes according to plan, insiders have said the hope is the Senators arena would be completed by the 2031-2032 season. 

Senators Sports & Entertainment has said in a statement that it was  “deeply committed to building the hockey community in Ottawa-Gatineau at all levels and that includes the women’s game.” 

The group went on to say it is “always willing to have dialogue and conversations if it fosters the strongest possible outcome for hockey fans in our community.”

There are also questions as to what would happen to the current Sens arena in Kanata once the NHL team moved downtown. Sports commentator Bruce Garrioch has raised the idea of building a new home for the RedBlacks football team and Atletico Ottawa soccer team at the sporting location in the future. 

A similar idea was brought forward in 2008 when former Sens owner Eugene Melnyk wanted to build a soccer facility, but the idea was opposed by city staff. 

On Friday, in a memo to the Mayor and members of council, Tammy Rose, general manager of the infrastructure and water services department, said the City had issued an order for work to commence. The request for tender documentation will be made available to the public within 30 days. 

Now, work will begin on the new event centre – which includes the arena – that will be built on a portion of the Great Lawn. The grassy berm will be removed first, with modifications made to the site so TD Place can maintain operations. 

A construction communications campaign will also kick off so residents can stay up to date on the project. A drop-in public information session will be planned to share how Lansdowne 2.0 will be constructed and to outline public impact. 

The event centre is slated to be finished by 2028 with work then beginning on the new north side stands. When that commences in 2031, two residential towers will be constructed with a full project completion planned by 2034. 

For women’s hockey, popularity is only continuing to grow. Now in its third season, the league has grown to eight teams with new franchises in Seattle and Vancouver. 

In January of this year, a game in Vancouver sold out the Rogers Arena with 19,038 fans in attendance to see the Montreal Victoire beat the Toronto Sceptres. It was the highest attended game at the arena that season, including the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks.  

Less than two weeks later, Quebec City sold out their stop of the PWHL Takeover Tour welcoming 18,259 fans to see the Ottawa Charge and Montreal Victoire.

On Nov. 15, a sold-out crowd of nearly 15,000 fans attended the Vancouver Goldeneyes' PWHL game against the Seattle Torrent at the Pacific Coliseum. The historic game set a new attendance record for a PWHL team's home arena.