Victoriafan wrote:Building a 5000 seat arena in a city of 35000 is akin to building a 200,000 seat arena in Vancouver. Not smart.
And you grew up there?
The current building seats 1900, and is packed every night. Sure 5100 seats is a lot now, but won't be in the future. Are you suggesting they should build barely to accomodate now, so as to creat imaginary demand? Building anything smaller isn't very cost effective, I'm certain.
Who cares if there's some empty seats? You know you're accomodating every one of your customer's with a good seat.
Waiting another 50 years to get the governments aligned again would be not smart. Doubling the capacity of Okanagan Hockey School, one of the finest, oldest & best in the entire world, is a very smart decision.
Besides, the metropolitan area of Penticton, according estimates at Wikipedia, is over 41,000, and it is definitely growing.
I personally know people that live in Osoyoos that have season's tickets to the Rockets, not to mention my brother, who also lives there, and has Vancouver Canuck's season's tickets.
I guess my point is, there is a great demand in smaller towns for better hockey & facilities. To characterize this move as stupid isn't nearly correct.