Air Canada Centre

From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project

North Entrance Atrium

The Air Canada Centre, often referred to simply as The ACC, is a multi-purpose arena located on Bay Street in downtown Toronto, Ontario. It is the home of the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association, the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, and the Toronto Rock of the National Lacrosse League. It was also home to the Toronto Phantoms of the Arena Football League during their brief existence.

The ACC is owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., the same group that owns both the Leafs and Raptors, and is 665,000 square feet (62,000 m²) in size.

An early nickname for the venue was "The Hangar" due to the corporate sponsor of the arena, Air Canada. However this name was never quite adopted by the general public. The Air Canada Centre is most commonly referred to as simply "The ACC" and has been referenced as such on the official Air Canada Centre website. It is located just south of Union Station.

Andy Frost is the public address announcer at the ACC during Maple Leafs home games, while Herbie Kuhn does the job for the Toronto Raptors, and Bruce Barker is the announcer for Toronto Rock games.

1 History
2 Venues
3 Best Buy Theatre
4 Future Renovations
5 Gallery
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

History

The Air Canada Centre was started by the Toronto Raptors under its initial ownership group headed by Canadian businessman John Bitove. The building was designed for both hockey and basketball, but basketball was its foremost purpose; indeed, sight lines were designed to be especially good for basketball's smaller court. While the building was under construction, the Maple Leafs were also looking at building their own new arena at a different location. Journalists such as the Toronto Star's Dave Perkins encouraged both sides to pair up into one arena; two 20,000-seat arenas were seen as overkill for the city. In purchasing the Raptors and the under-construction Air Canada Centre, MLSE provided the Maple Leafs the venue to move out of the aging legendary Maple Leaf Gardens. MLSE made some changes to the plans while the construction was underway, including turning upper level seats in the west end of the arena into private boxes. The Air Canada Centre's groundbreaking was performed in February of 1997.

The site was once occupied by the Canada Post Delivery Building. The current building retained the striking facades of the east (along Bay Street) and south (Lakeshore Boulevard) walls of that structure, but the rest of the building (facing Union Station) was removed to make room for the arena.

The 15-storey tower on Bay Street stands at 55 metres, and provides connections in the atrium to Union Station, Bay Street, and York Street (via Bremner Boulevard).

Venues

The first Maple Leafs home game took place on February 20, 1999 versus the Montreal Canadiens, won by the Leafs 3-2 on an overtime goal by Steve Thomas. The first Raptors game took place the following night versus the Vancouver Grizzlies. The facility hosted the 2000 NHL All-Star Game and the championship game of the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.

The Toronto Rock also moved to the ACC from Maple Leaf Gardens for the 2001 NLL season. The Rock's first game was a 17-7 win over the Ottawa Rebel on December 21, 2000^[1].

The venue held WWE SummerSlam in 2004 and WWE Unforgiven in 2006, as well as numerous other wrestling events.

The ACC has held numerous concerts to big name stars such as KISS, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, David Bowie, Coldplay, U2, Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Madonna, The Rolling Stones,Simple Plan, Oasis, Evanescence, Metallica and Billy Talent.

Best Buy Theatre

Located within the Air Canada Centre is the 5,200-seat Best Buy Theatre, used for theatre concerts, Broadway and family shows, and other events. It was formerly called the Sears Theatre and is also known as the Theatre at ACC. Our Lady Peace has performed in this venue.

Future Renovations

In late 2005, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment announced that they would be renovating the western side of the Air Canada Centre during the 2008 off-season, to connect it with the future Maple Leaf Square development. It will link with the PATH network, bringing the underground pedestrian walkway network to its most southerly point.

Gallery

Air Canada Centre from CN Tower.jpg View from CN Tower	Day150accg.JPG Another view of the ACC from the inside.	ACCNov22.JPG The Toronto Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers standing for the American National Anthem on November 22, 2006	Accnov22-2.JPG During a pre-game show
Accraptorsnov22.jpg During a game	Accnov22scoreboard.JPG Scoreboard during a Raptors game showing a closeup of Raptor's Chris Bosh	Accnov22 3.JPG Outside the ACC	Acc11-22-06-royalyork.JPG Outside the ACC showing the Royal York in the background