Thunderbird Arena

UBC Thunderbird Arena Is A Unique Venue For Vancouver 2010

The UBC Thunderbird Arena is today known as the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center. There is also another name by which this facility is known – the UBC Winter Sports Center. This indoor sports facility is situated at the premises of University Endowment Lands that is just situated off the borders of Vancouver city. It is in fact the grounds of University of British Columbia campus. The UBC Thunderbird Arena is also the space for the practice of the men’s as well as women’s UBC Thunderbirds ice hockey team. This facility is also the space where the 2010 Olympics as well as Paralympic Winter Games are scheduled to be held.

Brief history of UBC Thunderbird Arena

The UBC Thunderbird Arena had been constructed in the year 2006 and it features a chief ice rink that is capacitated at 7200 seats. The Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center had been made accessible to the public in 2008 on July 7. The construction as well as renovation of the UBC Winter Sports Center included the restoration of Father Bauer Arena that had been made open to the public in 1963 October. The Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center had in fact acted as a replacement for the Father Bauer Arena in being the base of the ice hockey players – the UBC Thunderbirds. In the year 2009 at August 21, Thunderbird Sports Centre attained a new name – the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center for honoring the UBC alumnus, Doug Mitchell who had also been a sport leader by profession, an amateur and a lawyer. It was Father David Bauer who established the first national hockey team of Canada here in 1963 for the 1964 Winter Olympic Games in Austria.

Location

The UBC Winter Sports Center or UBC Thunderbird Arena enjoys easy accessibility from different locations in the city. If you happen to be physically challenged, you can avail of the accessible shuttle that will pick you up from a specific location, preferably the UBC Bus Loop for dropping you to the arena grounds. The areas will cover the east of the Wesbrook Mall, located in the northern direction from Fairview Road. You can even access the seating space by taking the elevator to a level higher.

Rapid transit facilities are also available out here and all you need to do is go for the Canada Line to the Broadway City Hall station, or the Expo or Millennium Line to Broadway station, or even the Millennium Line to access the Commercial Drive station. You may also access the following bus routes: 9, 4, 17, 33, 25, 43, 44, 41, 480, 49, or N17. Bikers can access the Broadway bike route and after that take the University Boulevard to UBC. You can also park your bike at the UBC Bus Loop.

What sports will take place at UBC Thunderbird Arena

There are 2 ice skating rinks which feature seating capacities of 980 and 200 respectively. In fact, these spaces are scheduled to be used for the male and female ice hockey competitions at the Vancouver Winter Olympic games that are scheduled to start on February 12, 2010 and go up to the end of the month. The sledge hockey games are supposed to be hosted at the grounds of the UBC Thunderbird Arena during the Paralympic Games. The games are approached by the authorities in a user friendly manner and this is something that means that communication facilities are likely to be accessed easily by the visitors. There will be a total of 1800 seats hoisted at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Center. There will be a couple of ice resurfacing machines to clean the façade of the arena simultaneously, in a span of about 8 minutes.

The temporary seats will be installed in the arena with 28000 sq m of athletic fields being converted into solid surfacing for providing operational space to about 20 trailers. For the purposes of the game, there will also be a total of 19 tents that will be erected at the back region of the UBC Thunderbird Arena. The tickets are available near the point of intersection of the Agronomy Road and Wesbrook Mall. The ticket resolution is situated near the spectator entrance area. Once each session of the game ends, the seating space has to be evacuated.