LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Ottawa Charge fans filled TD Place stadium, yet Landsdowne 2.0 reduces capacity

The Ottawa Charge made it all the way to the championship finals in only their second year, defeating the Montreal Victoire and losing in the end to last year’s Walter Cup winner, the Minnesota Frost. Every game in the final round was a close-fought battle, terminating in 2-1 scores. Charge goalie, Gwyneth Philips, won the Ilana Kloss Most Valuable Player (in the playoffs) Award, a rare feat for the goalie of the losing team. She was also nominated for best rookie and best goalie in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, while Charge coach, Carla McLeod, was one of three nominees for best coach—a truly remarkable success story for a two-year-old team.

The Charge have a growing and enthusiastic fan base who filled TD Place arena with almost 8,200 fans waving their towels during the playoffs. The Sports Network commentators spoke of us as the loudest and proudest fans!  And as the PWHL’s Executive Vice-President of Business Ops, Amy Scheer, said, “They (Charge fans) come with their kazoos, they blast their lungs out, they’ve got Electric Avenue a couple of people deep to greet the players and this building is so loud.” The whole city has embraced the Charge, raising the Charge flag outside City Hall and christening part of Bank Street “Charge Avenue.”

Yet despite this outpouring of support city council continues to move forward with plans for a smaller arena. As part of the Lansdowne 2.0 plans to build two high-rise apartment buildings, the intention is to replace the current arena, which seats over 8,200, with a smaller one, offering 5,050 general admission seats for hockey games (excluding box seats and standing areas). In other words, for a club that on average drew 7,597 to games throughout the year and over 8,000 to the last home game of the series, there would be 3,000 fewer fans able to attend in the planned new arena. This makes no sense.

Why the plan for a smaller arena? Clearly, the PWHL and the city underestimated the league’s success and the growth of women’s professional sport in general. As a PWHL advisory board member noted, the initial projection for attendance was a mere 1,000 per game. Moreover, the TD Place Arena’s main tenant, the Ottawa 67’s, which used to fill the stadium, has struggled to attract over 5,000 since 2015. So the initial plan was based on what turned out to be a flawed prediction. It is not too late to change the City’s position. The Charge, like its sister teams in Montreal and Toronto which switched to much larger arenas in their second year, needs an arena the size of TD Place, not the puny one currently being planned.

At the presentation of the Walter Cup, the PWHL’s championship trophy, on May 26, 2025, Billie Jean King, who helped found the league, said, “Women’s sports deserve the biggest stage.” As the PWHL league grows along with other women’s professional sports, it is incumbent on the City of Ottawa to keep up. Charge fans do not want to watch their team play in a much smaller arena, subsidized by their taxes. Time for this City to revisit the plan for Lansdowne 2.0.

Rianne Mahon and Margaret Buis