Located between 2-4 kilometers from the athletes village, the 2010 Olympic Winter Games hockey tournaments will take place in two venues -- Canada Hockey Place and the UBC Thunderbird Arena. Both venues existed prior to Vancouver being awarded the 2010 Games.
Canada Hockey Place, known locally as General Motors Place, will be the primary Olympic hockey arena at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The arena was completed in 1995 and privately financed to be the home of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks. The arena has 88 luxury suites, 12 hospitality suites and 2195 club seats. It has a total capacity of slightly more than 18,800. In 2006, Canada Hockey Place was given a freshen up. An LED ribbon board and a state of the art high-definition scoreboard hanging over centre ice were installed.
When the city first won the right to host the 2010 Olympics, the plan was to renovate Canada Hockey Place to accommodate an international-sized ice surface. This renovation would have resulted in the removal of seats in the arena. In 2006, VANOC and the International Ice Hockey Federation announced they had canceled the ice reno plans and, for the first time in the history of the Olympic Winter Games, the Vancouver Olympics 2010 hockey tournament would be played on NHL-sized ice. The new plan saved VANOC $10 million in renovations and will allow 35,000 more spectators into Canada Hockey Place over the duration of the Olympic Games. Oddly enough, additional locker rooms will be built as part of the scaled down renos. You have to wonder how many dressing rooms are needed as it is very likely that 6-8 already existed.
Olympic Figure Skating will take place at another venue.
General Motors Place has played host to many international hockey tournaments before including the 2006 World Junior Hockey Championships.
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