There's a special place in hell
reserved for the geniuses who decided to put the Ottawa Senators home
ice in Kanata. I hope when they get there they're forever stuck in
traffic.
There are many reasons why the Sens are
in Kanata. None of that matters to me. What matters is that when
the Sens play a home game I spend an extra forty minutes battling
traffic after work.
A friend of mine once worked in a
downtown hotel. Whenever tourists asked where they could go to see a
hockey game he'd have to tell them to get on a bus and head west to
another town. Then, if they said they'd like to see a baseball game, they'd have to get on a bus and head east. Football? You're taking
the bus south. But they could always walk to Lebreton Flats to see
our war museum. Tourists don't want to see other countries war
museums. If I go to Brazil I have no desire to see the Brazilian
war museum. I'm going to a soccer game!
When you go to Toronto you can walk
from the Air Canada Centre to the new aquarium, then on to the CN
Tower, then to the Skydome (yes, I'll always call it the Skydome).
Then there's great restaurants nearby. When you bus it out to the
Palladium (Corel Centre, Scotiabank Place, Canadian Tire Centre,
whatever) what's out there? Nothing. You're two shakes away from
resorting to cannibalism waiting for the damn bus to take you back to
civilization.
Ottawa would have been wise to develop
Lebreton Flats as an entertainment centre. But that would have
required foresight. So, instead of making Ottawa more accessible
and exciting for tourists and the general public, they're building
condos. Oh joy!
