More seating for Jets fans

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This article was published 28/01/2015 (3938 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The MTS Centre is expanding its seating capacity for the 2015-16 NHL season but it won’t raise the roof.

The downtown arena also won’t be widened, said Norva Riddell, senior vice-president of sales and marketing at True North Sports & Entertainment.

Instead, the owners of the Winnipeg Jets are going to add 278 premium loge seats above the luxury suites but accessed from the 300 level.

The seats will be 24-inch wide swivel chairs in groups of three, four or six, and will form a single row around the building.

“We wanted to add a reasonable amount of seats. We consider these to be premium seats. There’s nobody behind you and there’s nobody in front of you,” Riddell said.

The cost will be $134.40 per ticket, and a $500 seat licence will be tacked on to the season ticket package.

The central figure in the arena enhancement, all part of the True North 2020 plan that began in 2013, is a new, high-definition video scoreboard that will replace the current ornament high above centre ice. The new board will feature four primary screens that are 2.5 times the physical size and three times the resolution of the screens on the existing scoreboard.

It will feature two large video rings situated above and below the screens. A new state-of-the-art control room will be installed to allow for the production of high-definition images, improved audio and additional cameras.

“There will be other buildings with bigger scoreboards but ours is going to be terrific in our arena bowl. Bigger isn’t always better. Clearly we want people to focus on the game and not be watching the scoreboard all the time,” Riddell said.

Jon Spoelstra, a U.S. sports marketing expert, said it’s great the MTS Centre can only add 278 seats.

“I’m always a fan of the smaller building in the NHL. I think (the Jets) are in a terrific place. I think they’re about right. I think that’s a great venue to watch a game,” he said.

‘We wanted to add a reasonable amount of seats. We consider these to be premium seats. There’s nobody behind you and there’s nobody in front of you’

— Norva Riddell, senior vice-president of sales and marketing at True North Sports & Entertainment

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Spoelstra said those who think True North should raise the roof and add thousands of seats need to give their heads a shake. The Buffalo Sabres did that 30 years ago and it was a disaster.

“They added 4,000 terrible seats. Everything was wrong with it, including the concessions and restrooms. They were the worst seats I had seen in sports. It was so steep. I walked up there and I thought I needed to be an alpine climber with ropes and Gurkhas with me,” he said.

The MTS Centre has undergone several renovations since the Jets became the main tenant 31/2 years ago. More than $8 million was spent in the summer of $2011 and $2 million more in each of 2012 and 2013.

By the time the overhaul is complete, the total price tag will have reached $40 million for renovations carried out from 2013 to 2020.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca