Vancouver Giants
Rink: Langley Events Centre
Capacity: 5,276
Built: 2009
League: WHL
City: Langley, British Columbia
Home Of: Vancouver Giants
Games Attended: 1
Only Game: March 3, 2024 vs Seattle
Unique Arena: #83
WHL Arena: #17
When the Vancouver Giants started as an expansion team in 2001, they played at the old Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. While the team seemed to do well there and actually set the all-time tournament-long attendance record for the Memorial Cup in 2007, the decision was eventually made to leave the giant old coliseum in 2016 and move to Langley, a Vancouver suburb some 35km southeast. The team wanted a venue that in the end might be more of an appropriate-size, game-in game-out, during the long regular season of the WHL. It sits just a few minutes’ drive off the Trans-Canada highway in a major sports complex, surrounded by soccer fields, tennis, basketball and volleyball courts and pavilions to make it a recreation wonderland for all sports. The Langley Events Centre itself doesn’t just have the rink for the Giants (and other hockey teams) but also has several indoor basketball courts including one that hosts the USports Trinity Western Spartans. The front facade of the arena screams BC, with lots of timber-looking accents that helps liven up what would be otherwise the exterior of many other rinks/entertainment centres across the CHL.
Entering the Events Centre at street level you immediately go up a large staircase to the main concourse in one of the corners of the building. What lays in front of you is a pretty typical clone rink. It’s your usual 5,000ish seat bowl with a concourse that runs around the top with a full view of the action while you’re in line at the concession stand or bathroom. The concourse isn’t the widest around, so with a packed house it can be a little slow to navigate, but some spots open up to help ease foot traffic flow. All the seats in Langley are blue plastic (no club seats from what I saw) that are comfortable enough with good views of the ice.
The scoreboard situation is a bit different, however. There is a typical four-sided HD videoboard that hangs over centre ice. However, for a building of this size the video screens are a tad on the smaller side. There is no scoreboard above centre ice, rather four separate scoreboards that hang on the ribbon board just below the suites in the two ends and one each on the sides at centre ice. It’s a bit different for sure, but not hard to spot or read. It’s just odd that they didn’t just get a bigger videoboard that could fit it all. There are also suites that run in a U shape around the top of the building while at the bottom of the U they really stack them a bit with one area having three levels of suite seats stacked on top of each other high into the rafters.
Visually what stands out the most in Langley is the ceiling. While the roof itself is black corrugated metal in an arch shape, the roof trusses themselves are all stained wood and look marvelous. I’m not sure if it’s real wood or just made to look like it, but regardless it’s a fantastic look, especially for a team in BC which is known for its vast forest landscape. Also of note in Langley are the concession stands. One of them is a Triple O’s, which for those not familiar is a local fast-food burger chain in BC and a very very good one at that. But not just the Triple O’s, it seems each concession stand seems to specialize in something specific and does it well. I only spotted one generic-looking stand, the rest seemed pretty specialized and made with some extra effort as opposed to generic here’s your fries and Coke-type stands. Also of note, at one end of the area on the outside of the concourse there are doors leading to a large atrium/banquet hall which for the game I was at was being used to hold silent auctions on a variety of different hockey-related items. During the game itself it was advertised that the post-game radio show would be live to air in this hall.
Game production in Langley is pretty good. Not the best I’ve seen, but better than a lot of teams. The rink was pretty full for the game I attended, but like many clones the crowd wasn’t too over the top. They weren’t crazy but they weren’t a dud either; mind you I was spoiled the previous night in Everett for atmosphere.
Overall, I would say the Vancouver Giants experience is a good one. I wouldn’t say the arena is as good as what I would consider the best clone rinks in Gatineau, Oshawa and Seattle. But it’s better than many other clone rinks across the country. The experience is slightly above average, that doesn’t sound like the most exciting thing to shoot for, but it can be a whole lot worse.
