Conversations have begun to make the 2026 Grey Cup the last one held at McMahon Stadium in Calgary.
The 66-year-old building will host the Canadian Football League’s championship game Sunday between the Edmonton Elks and Montreal Alouettes.
The home of the CFL’s Stampeders since 1960, and the site of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympics, is the second-oldest pro football stadium in Canada and one of the most venerable in North America.
Montreal’s Percival Molson Memorial Stadium, built in 1915, has been the home of the Alouettes since 1998.
With the NHL’s Flames moving to Scotia Place next year after 44 years in the Saddledome, attention has turned to an even older pro sports venue in Calgary and what to do about it.
When Calgary hosted the 2019 Grey Cup, the CFL’s commissioner at that time, Randy Ambrosie, predicted it would be the last at McMahon.
But the CFL’s showcase game has returned for a sixth time with a little more tread worn off McMahon’s tires.
“McMahon Stadium is pretty tired, I’m afraid,” said McMahon Stadium Society chair Steve Allan.
“It’s time for a new building.”
Replacement parts for McMahon’s seats are no longer available, so salvaging Saddledome seats before the wrecking ball swings there could be a stop-gap option until a new stadium materializes, Allan said.
“We’re just trying to patch up an old dog, and we’ve been doing that for years, and it’s not working,” Allan said. “The guts of the building are just too old.”
The Calgary Stampede has hired a firm to study the idea of adding field sports to GMC Stadium, which currently seats 17,000 in its grandstand just south of Scotia Place.
“We recognize that CFL football can’t stay at McMahon Stadium indefinitely,” said Jim Laurendeau, the Stampede’s executive vice-president of park development and operations. “It’s been well articulated that McMahon Stadium is certainly past its prime as far as stadiums in Canada go.
“We decided to take a real look at whether our current facility, being the GMC Stadium, currently home to chuckwagon races, Indigenous relay, the grandstand show and rodeo every day during Stampede, could that be adapted to accommodate field sports? We would look at professional football, but we could also look at other field sports like soccer as well over time.”
The City of Calgary is doing its own feasibility study on “major sports and event infrastructure in Calgary.
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“This work is early-stage due diligence and does not represent a decision or commitment to build a new facility,” the city said in a statement. “The study will help the city assess potential needs, opportunities, risks and next steps in a co-ordinated way, including how future facilities could support sport, events, tourism, economic development and community use.
“The city is working with the University of Calgary and the McMahon Stadium Society to support the continued safe operation of McMahon Stadium.”
McMahon is on University of Calgary land and home to the university’s football team.
But the university wants to move on from McMahon. About $23 million has been raised to build a 5,000-seat multi-purpose university and community sport stadium on campus.
“McMahon Stadium has played a significant role in Calgary’s sports landscape for decades and remains a safe and operational facility today,” Faculty of Kinesiology dean Nick Holt said in a statement.
“The University of Calgary, the City of Calgary, and McMahon Stadium Society continue to work collaboratively to manage and maintain the stadium for the foreseeable future.
“At the same time, McMahon is an aging asset approaching the end of its life. All partners recognize the need to move beyond incremental investments in an aging asset and consider sustainable long-term solutions.”
New turf installed last year at McMahon, where the Calgary Wild women’s pro soccer team also plays, has an eight-year lifespan.
“We don’t want to put turf down in this building again, so we need a building for the start of the 2033 season,” Allan said.
While McMahon will continue to house the Stampeders for a few years yet, team president Jay McNeil says there’s urgency to get shovels in the ground.
“Our life here at McMahon has to change and it has to change quickly,” McNeil said.
“Fans’ expectations for what an experience is on game day, whether it’s football, hockey, or baseball, it is significantly higher than what it used to be. They want premium standing room only where they can be a community with others. They want different types of seating, and McMahon offers none of that.
“It makes it a challenge for us as we try to sell tickets, try to grow our business. With fans’ expectations growing higher, it becomes more of a challenge every day.
“I would say this will likely be the last Grey Cup ever played at McMahon.”
Who pays for what in a new stadium is a question for further down the road, said Allan, who pointed out McMahon sits on valuable land, and the city also owns a valuable parcel beside the stadium.
CSEC’s investment in the $1.22-billion Scotia Place is currently valued at $356 million via up-front investment and increasing lease payments over a 35-year span.
CSEC president Robert Hayes welcomes feasibility studies underway by the Stampede and the city.
“The short answer would be we need a new facility for the Calgary Stampeders Football Club. There’s no question about that,” Hayes said.
“The longer answer would be there are other people who are looking at this. I’ve always been, again, a sideline cheerleader when I’ve been asked that if people are looking at a new facility, we are a tenant there for nine games a year (in the) regular season and, knock on wood, playoffs hopefully as well, and we use it for plus or minus a hundred days a year for practice facilities.”
The Stampede’s GMC Stadium is a pro football stadium option because of its proximity to Scotia Place and the money the city spent on public transportation and street infrastructure to turn the entire area into a culture and entertainment district.
What kind of engineering feat is needed to convert a rodeo infield and a chuckwagon track into a football field and back again? Laurendeau hopes to have an answer by the summer of 2027.
“There’s half of a stadium right now that looks down facing east onto the rodeo field of play. Why wouldn’t we just add another building on the other side of that, put a football field in there and go for it?” Laurendeau asked.
“Of course, like anything, when you start to look under the surface, there’s lots to it.”
