Former sporting venue in British Columbia, Canada
For the later temporary home of Vancouver Whitecaps FC and the British Columbia Lions, see
Empire Field
.
Empire Stadium
was a
multi-purpose stadium
that stood at the
Pacific National Exhibition
site at
Hastings Park
in
Vancouver, British Columbia
, Canada. Track and field and
Canadian football
, as well as soccer,
rugby
and musical events, were held at the stadium. The stadium was originally constructed for the
1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games
. The stadium (which sat 32,375 upon opening, but 30,229 after 1974) hosted both
Elvis Presley
and
The Beatles
. It saw most of its use as the home of the
BC Lions
of the
CFL
from 1954 to 1982, in which the venue also played host to the first
Grey Cup
game held west of Ontario in
1955
. Empire Stadium also hosted the Grey Cup game in
1958
,
1960
,
1963
,
1966
,
1971
, and
1974
; seven times in total.
Empire Stadium was often home to the
Shrine Bowl Provincial Championship
for provincial senior high school.
[1]
The stadium was also home to the
Vancouver Whitecaps
of the
North American Soccer League
during the 1970s and early 1980s, as well as the
Vancouver Royals
of the same league for their only year of play in 1968.
Just before the
1966 Grey Cup
game, the stadium had the new "gooseneck" or "slingshot" goal posts erected invented by Jim Trimble and Joel Rottman, marking the first time these goalposts were used at any level of football in a championship game. They were first used a week earlier at Montreal's
Autostade
for the 1966 Eastern Conference final; this model goalpost would soon become the standard design in the NFL and CFL. In 1970, it became the first facility in Canada to have artificial playing surface installed made by
3M
, under the brand name "
Tartan Turf
".
Both the Lions and Whitecaps moved to
BC Place Stadium
for the 1983 season. The stadium was demolished in the early 1990s. The site served as a parking lot for the neighbouring Pacific National Exhibition as well as
Playland
for many years before being converted to a soccer field and track on the site of the old field.
With
BC Place Stadium
undergoing renovations in 2010 and 2011, the
BC Lions
and
Vancouver Whitecaps
played their home games at
Empire Field
, a temporary field constructed on the former grounds of Empire Stadium.
[2]
[3]
[4]
After the renovations to BC Place were complete, the temporary stadium was removed. The park and sports fields were restored for community use.
The Miracle Mile
[
edit
]
Vancouver hosted the
1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games
in 1954 at Empire Stadium. The most famous event of the games was the One Mile Race in which both
John Landy
and
Roger Bannister
ran the distance in
under four minutes
. The race's end is memorialized in a statue of the two (with Landy glancing over his shoulder, thus losing the race), that stood outside the stadium until its demolition. The statue formerly stood near the south end of Hastings St., but has since been moved to the
Pacific National Exhibition
north entrance just metres from where the feat took place at the new
Empire Fields
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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49°16′57.5″N
123°1′59.6″W
/
49.282639°N 123.033222°W
/
49.282639; -123.033222