{"id":446430,"date":"2026-05-13T09:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/446430\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T09:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:02:12","slug":"us-and-canadian-ice-hockey-stars-to-invest-in-proposed-e250m-arena-for-dublin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/446430\/","title":{"rendered":"US and Canadian ice hockey stars to invest in proposed \u20ac250m arena for Dublin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several US<\/a> and Canadian<\/a> ice hockey stars, including former Stanley Cup winners, have emerged as investors in the proposed \u20ac250 million ice hockey arena for Dublin.<\/p>\n

The business consortium behind the plan, Prime Arena Holdings, said several current and former players from North America\u2019s National Hockey League (NHL) were now backing the project.<\/p>\n

The list includes Rob Blake, Stanley Cup champion and former general manager of the Los Angeles Kings; Pat Flatley, former captain of the New York Islanders and a Canadian national team player; and Cory Cross, two-time IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) world champion with Team Canada.<\/p>\n

Flatley said the project represented a unique opportunity to establish hockey infrastructure and culture in a big international city.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur family is from Urlaur, Co Mayo<\/a> and emigrated to Canada in 1957. I had two older brothers who my dad put into hockey because it reminded him of hurling and I followed in their footsteps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The other NHL stars on the list include Glen Murray, former top-line scorer with the Boston Bruins; Jake Evans, current NHL player with the Montreal Canadiens; and Alex Newhook, Stanley Cup champion and current NHL player with Montreal.<\/p>\n

The proposed scheme, to be located in Cherrywood, south Dublin, aims to serve as a national hub for winter sports as well as a concert and corporate events venue.<\/p>\n

It will feature an 8,000-plus capacity arena, expandable to more than 10,500 for big events, and include two Olympic-sized ice rinks. <\/p>\n

As well as being the State\u2019s first permanent Olympic-standard ice facility, it will also host Dublin\u2019s first professional ice hockey franchise, which aims to compete in the UK league alongside the Belfast Giants.<\/p>\n

The venue is being designed by sports architecture firm Populous, whose portfolio includes the Sphere in Las Vegas, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, Yankee Stadium in New York and the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.<\/p>\n

Dermot Rigley, founder and chief executive of Prime Arena Holdings, said the involvement of NHL figures was a big validation of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see Stanley Cup champions, hall-of-famers and current NHL players backing a project in Dublin is an extraordinary validation of both the vision and the scale of the opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about far more than an arena. This is about bringing Ireland into the global hockey and live entertainment conversation and building a new transatlantic sports and entertainment platform between Europe and North America,\u201d Rigley said.<\/p>\n

Prime Arena said last year it had reached agreement to purchase the site, adjacent to junction 16 of the M50 motorway, from US property group Hines, which is developing 1,300 apartments in the Cherrywood strategic development zone.<\/p>\n

A planning application for the stadium development, which has the backing of D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, is scheduled to be submitted before the end of July this year.<\/p>\n

The group hopes to get the project approved by the first quarter of 2027 and to commence work in the middle of that year. If all goes to plan, it hopes the venue could be up and running by the end of 2029 or the start of 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several US and Canadian ice hockey stars, including former Stanley Cup winners, have emerged as investors in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[194153,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-446430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ice-hockey","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}