Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Either let Daryl Katz have a new arena or prepare to follow in Winnipeg's footsteps.

EDMONTON — You have to be of a certain vintage to remember when the Edmonton Oilers played out of the Northlands Coliseum, with that little red logo at centre ice.

It was a time before arena naming rights, in an era when the best rink in the World Hockey Association could be constructed for the grand sum of $17.3 million.

The year was 1974. Five years later, when the Oilers entered the National Hockey League, Northlands Coliseum was still a considerably more avant garde facility than the Chicago Stadium, the Olympia in Detroit, or arenas in Boston, Toronto or Montreal, for that matter.

Those days, alas, are gone.

Today, with the retirement of the Melon Arena in Pittsburgh, that old rink on 118th ave. in Edmonton is the second eldest barn in the league, next to the 1972-vintage dump the New York Islanders reluctantly call home.

As a smaller Canadian market grapples with the prospects of funding owner Daryl Katz’s grand plan of a downtown arena district, fans from across Canada can relate the project to what has happened in their own cities when a team and a sport outgrew its original home.

The hard truth is, as integral as Northlands has been in the Oilers’ existence to date, there is no room anymore for a local fair board to bite into arena profits. The Stampede Board in Calgary has ostensibly moved aside and left the profits to the Flames, returning to what it does best: Put on the summer exhibition and rodeo, and managing a race track and various Home and Garden-type shows throughout the calendar.

Here in Edmonton, Katz has made no bones about his intention to exclude Northlands. Their reply, through various channels is paraphrased as, "Yes, but we’ve got the Canadian Finals Rodeo, which pumps millions into the local economy. And if you don’t include us, we’ll undercut your concert business by charging less for bands to use the old rink."

In the end, Katz should give Northlands a week each November in the downtown arena for their rodeo, and Northlands should realize that competing in a city this size against a new downtown arena will be bad business for everyone. Their history is as a civic booster, and even though the pill is hard to swallow, this is no time to change course.

This isn’t Toronto, where Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment eventually funded the new Air Canada Centre. A certain level of civic involvement — i.e. tax dollars — is going to have to be part of the equation if a city with the population and geography of Edmonton wants a state of the art arena surrounded by hotels, a casino, restaurants etc to breathe necessary life into its moribund downtown.

It sounds easy, really.

The Oilers and the city need a new arena. The old one has lived a good life.

Edmonton’s downtown has, for decades now, been a disaster. Council has come up with plan after failed plan to revitalize it's downtown, and arena districts have proven to do exactly that in city after city across this continent.

Yet councilors, under the guise of due diligence, still question the need to build downtown. We would direct them to Ottawa, where the distant Scotiabank Place has done wonders for Kanata’s economy, but nothing for Ottawa’s.

They ask, "Why isn’t Rexall Place good enough?" See Winnipeg: A city that sat on its ageing Winnipeg Arena for far too long, lost its NHL team, and then belatedly built a downtown arena.

They ask why Northlands can’t run the arena, with the Oilers as a tenant, as if it is still 1981. The facts are, teams run the rinks now, and derive the revenues therein. That is the reality of pro sports today.

You may not like that. I’m not sure I do either.

But measure your dislike of Katz operating the new arena for 50 weeks a year, give or take a rodeo and a Brier, against the prospect of Edmonton not having an NHL team. There really isn’t much in between.

So make your call, Edmonton. It will cost some money, but you can either chase Toronto, or chase Winnipeg.

It isn’t free to be known as that scrappy city in northern Alberta that punches well above its weight when it comes to holding international events. And you can’t stem the flow of Edmontonians who get their degrees at the University of Alberta only to take a job in Calgary, Vancouver or Toronto, by living in the past.

You may not trust your local team owner implicitly. That’s fine.

But when you are Edmonton, and he’s got $200 million, control of your team, and the first viable plan to fix your downtown in decades, you’d better find a way to make a deal.

It’s not 1974 anymore, Edmonton. That’s the new reality.