If Canucks want a legacy, they should think bigger at Britannia

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PJ’s Ponderings: If we’re talking about practise, we really should be talking about adding ice rinks to the city of Vancouver.

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Published Mar 14, 2026 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

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The Canucks should listen to Vancouver’s minor hockey associations. For them, the idea of a four-storey building being latched onto the venerable Britannia Rink, pictured here, is nothing more than a shrug. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNGArticle content

Fans and politicos may be all in a tizzy about the idea of the Vancouver Canucks putting their long discussed practise rink at the Britannia complex but really everyone is missing the point.

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One thing I heard this week in talking to folks about this story was “the Aquilinis want to build a legacy item for east Vancouver, for their roots.”

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Which is a great motivator. But if they want to leave a real legacy, they should listen to Vancouver’s minor hockey associations. For them, the idea of a four-storey building being latched onto the venerable Britannia Rink is nothing more than a shrug.

What they need is ice. As has been noted more than once in these pages, the city’s ice rink capacity has been essentially stagnant for a half-century.

Take the Vancouver Minor Hockey Association, which runs boys youth hockey across east Vancouver. More than a quarter of their total ice time takes place at Britannia. Their other main facility is the Agrodome, where they’ve run into booking issues because it’s now the Vancouver Goldeneyes’ training facility.

“They upgraded, which is great, but then they blocked off 7 a.m. till 3 p.m. for a month so we couldn’t get our schedule sorted out,” Levi Higgs, president of the VMHA explained. Minor hockey doesn’t use ice time during school hours, but they use the ice before school, so not having access from 7 a.m. till 8:30 a.m. was difficult.

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NHL teams usually practise between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., so if the Canucks were to move into Britannia, most of their usage probably wouldn’t affect minor hockey — until the weekend. If the Canucks had to decamp from Rogers Arena because of a weekend concert, they’d need to use Britannia.

“What would the contract say,” Higgs wondered. “What is their ability to kick us out? We’d run skills sessions and practises at the Agrodome. We’d get two weeks’ notice that the Goldeneyes wanted to use the ice from say 2 till 5. You can work around skills sessions and practises though it’s not ideal. But you can’t be moving game times.”

The ice situation is now so tight that VHMA will likely have to turn kids away next year, Higgs said. There’s just no more ice time to be found.

Higgs, who is an energy manager at Vancouver International Airport, used to be on the board for the Britannia Community Centre. He got involved because he had hopes that the long-sought and Britannia complex renewal once planned for would have the second rink built.

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But he discovered at least two big problems. One was the politics: about 70 per cent of the complex is controlled by the school board, essentially the core. The other 30 per cent, basically in a U shape around the eastern end of the school buildings, is park board or other city control. And then there was the community board. That’s a lot of stakeholders.

The other problem was a major infrastructure one.

“There’s a major B.C. Hydro duct that runs downtown along the south side of the rink,” he explained.

And so here we are. The city desperately needs to increase its ice rink capacity. Burnaby has found a way to add public rinks. Surrey is too. Britannia may be challenging but Higgs still thinks there’s untapped opportunity there. The fact the rink has a new ice plant is great. But it’s an inefficiency.

“One of the worst investments you can do is to build a new ice plant but have just one rink,” he noted. “The Richmond oval has two rinks but that ice plant could run 10.”

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The PNE presents an opportunity, too.

“From a planner’s point of view, why not tear down the Agrodome and build a fourplex and work with the Canucks on that? Or if you’re tearing down the racetrack, why not add a multi-sport angle there with a new rink?”

Bottom line, the Canucks could do some big things here if they want to and build a real connection with their community. As it stands, Vancouver’s lack of multi-sheet ice rinks inhibits our ability to host youth hockey tournaments. Imagine the good will the Canucks would get from bringing major youth hockey tournaments to the city itself.

pjohnston@postmedia.com