The new 2007 Canada Games Centre provides future Olympic athletes an environment in which they can develop their competition skills, while also serving as a multifaceted community leisure facility for the 20,000 residents of Yukon Territory’s capital city.
The Centre accommodates competitive programs for badminton, gymnastics, ice hockey, short-course speed skating and figure skating, as well as drop-in and scheduled community use for fitness/ wellness, child play, leisure skating, indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball and other court sports.
The arena core can handle simultaneous use by both community patrons and Games athletes. Adjacent to the Olympic-size ice sheet — which provides space for hockey and short-track speed skating — is a leisure ice area that can be accessed by patrons without risk of interrupting concurrent competitive or training events. Other facility features include two field houses (one accommodating court sports, the other field sports), a cardio fitness and strengthtraining center and a three-lane 250-meter running track.
Visibility throughout the facility helps ensure a bright, expansive and welcoming environment and allows the multiplex to serve as a community gathering place. Typifying this concept is a family lounge that spans a portion of the leisure ice and offers views of both the ice arena and the building’s exterior.
Against the scenic backdrop of Mount McIntyre to the northeast, the Canada Games Centre is environmentally sensitive in its design. Capable of achieving a LEED™ silver certification, the facility features a number of green building technologies.
