The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is calling Ottawa's plans for the next Lansdowne Park arena “a huge step back,” warning it throws the financial viability of the Ottawa Charge into question.
The event centre proposed through the Lansdowne 2.0 redevelopment plan would seat 5,850 people, according to city staff. They say added standing room would boost capacity to 6,600.
The 48-year-old arena currently has about 9,500 seats.
Amy Scheer, the league’s executive vice president of business operations, told CBC News Friday the reduced capacity is a “tough pill to swallow.”
“It puts our league and our team in a position to really not thrive,” she said.
“It's a huge step back in terms of having an opportunity for our fans to see our team play. You know, 3,000 less fans a game is a significant hit … it's not a financial model that makes any kind of sense.”
Charge weekday regular season games attracted 5,775 fans on average last season, though the goal for the coming season is 6,500. Their weekend games attracted an average of 8,348.
The Ottawa Charge play the Boston Fleet at the TD Place arena on Jan. 11, 2025. (CBC)Scheer said she is confident those numbers will grow and that hundreds of proposed standing spaces is little solace for the PWHL.
“When you look at our audience, we've got a very mature audience. We've got an audience with families,” she said. “I don't think standing room-only is an option.”
Jayna Hefford, executive vice president of hockey operations at the PWHL and a former Canadian national team player, called the situation “disappointing.”
“We’ve been excited about Ottawa as a market from day one,” she said.
“We’ve been welcomed in a big way by the hockey fans. We love playing there. I tell people all the time, it’s one of the best buildings in our league to be in. The energy in that building is fantastic.”
'All options are on the table' for ChargeScheer said the league has been clear “in no uncertain terms” during talks with the city and Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) that capacity was going to be a challenge and it wanted them to reconsider the proposed arena.
A league spokesperson said the first such meeting was in June 2024.
“We sit here today in the same place where we've started,” Scheer said. “So do we feel we've been heard? Probably not.”
CBC News asked whether the league would keep the Charge in Ottawa should the current Lansdowne 2.0 plans go forward.
“The ultimate goal is to work something out with the City of Ottawa. We're not looking to run. If we're put in that position, would we considerate it? Sure,” Scheer answered. “All options are on the table, but we love Ottawa. We don't want to go anywhere.”
A rendering of the view from the TD Place field toward the new event centre. (City of Ottawa)She said the PWHL is not ready to “drive the car off the bridge right yet,” and sees plenty of runway for a solution, but the arena as proposed doesn’t work.
“As it’s contemplated today, in the conversations we’ve had, the new arena is not viable for us as a professional women’s hockey league,” she added.
Scheer said the PWHL is planning to come to next week’s meeting of Ottawa’s finance and corporate services committee, which will hear delegations on the Lansdowne 2.0 plan before it goes to the full city council for a final vote on Nov. 7.
Mayor calls criticism a negotiating tacticOttawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, a strong supporter of the Lansdowne 2.0 project, said he was surprised to hear the PWHL's concerns.
“The number of seats that were going to be in the arena was very clear in 2023 and even before that,” he said. “They actually delegated in support of the new arena during the Lansdowne committee meetings in 2023.”
Player Jincy Roese did appear at a committee meeting, though in 2024, and spoke about the subject of player conditions and change rooms, not capacity.
Sutcliffe called the PWHL statements to CBC News a negotiating tactic from “big powerful American businesspeople.”
The PWHL and all eight of its teams are owned by the Mark Walter Group, led by investor Mark Walter, whose net worth is $7.3 billion according to Forbes.
“They’re the people who own the L.A. Dodgers … they own a Formula One racing team. They know big business,” Sutcliffe said.
“I suspect that this is their way of applying pressure on the negotiations they’re having with OSEG on a new lease for Lansdowne Park to get the best deal possible.”
A rendering of the proposed PWHL dressing room in the Lansdowne 2.0 project. (City of Ottawa)Mark Goudie, the OSEG CEO, confirmed those negotiations in a statement to CBC. He called the PWHL comments “perplexing.”
“We’ve had detailed and positive discussions with the league about a lease extension into our new Event Centre. From our side, the terms we offered were extremely favourable to the PWHL. Until last week, I thought we were very close to finalizing an agreement,” he said.
“We remain hopeful that we can get a deal done with the league and that we can continue to play an important part in the Ottawa Charge and PWHL’s next chapter.”
Sutcliffe said it’s a “familiar refrain” to hear professional sports teams raise the prospect of leaving a city to get a better deal, but he noted that the Charge has a significant fan base in Ottawa. He said Ottawa wants them to stay.
If the team grows enough, he suggested they will eventually outgrow an 8,000-seat arena and end up at Canadian Tire Centre or the new Senators arena proposed for LeBreton Flats anyway.
He said it would cost about $80 million to $100 million to add 2,000 seats to the proposed arena at Lansdowne.
“If the team’s growing and it’s successful and it has more money to put into building a bigger arena, then obviously we’d be open to that conversation,” the mayor said.
“That’s not my understanding. I don’t think they want to write us a cheque."
Some fan appetite for bigger arenaSutcliffe said the new arena at Lansdowne will be a more modern and accessible facility that will mean an "amazing experience" for fans and players.
"We're adding all kinds of features that will benefit the PWHL team: women's only change rooms, training facilities, exercise rooms," he said.
The city says the events centre will accommodate 7,000 people for concerts. (City of Ottawa)But some Charge fans who spoke to CBC had serious qualms about the reduced seating.
Jamie Janes, a season ticket holder and director of the East Ottawa Girls Hockey Association, told CBC that downsizing the seating capacity “threatens to bottleneck the growth potential and limit accessibility to women’s professional hockey in the city.”
“If Ottawa wants to be a national leader in women’s sport equity and city development, this is the moment to build forward, not backward,” she said in a text message exchange.
Another season ticket holder, Kayley Kennedy, said the current arena at TD Place is “the perfect size.”
“I'm really disappointed to hear the reduction in seats, especially because the PWHL has just started and seen incredible success already. I believe it's going to continue to grow,” she said.
“I'm really nervous about cutting back the seats and it killing the momentum of the team here.”