Athletic Park (Vancouver)

Last updated
Athletic Park
Athletic Park 1915.jpg
Opening dedication of Athletic Park in Vancouver in 1913.
Athletic Park (Vancouver)
LocationWest 6th Avenue and Hemlock Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Coordinates 49°15′58.9″N123°08′08.2″W / 49.266361°N 123.135611°W / 49.266361; -123.135611
Owner Canadian Pacific Railway 1913-1944, Emil Sick 1944-1951.
Operator Bob Brown 1913-1944 on lease.
Capacity 6,000
SurfaceGrass
Construction
Broke ground1910
OpenedApril 17, 1913
Renovated1926 and 1945 after fires
Tenants
Baseball: Vancouver Beavers (Northwestern League) 1913-1922.

Vancouver Capilanos Western International Baseball League 1939-1950

Football:

Contents

UBC Thunderbirds 1924-1930

Athletic Park was a sports facility in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada mainly used for baseball but also hosted soccer, football, lacrosse, bike races, and rallies.

Opening day

Bob Brown, the man who would later be known as Vancouver's "Mr. Baseball" cleared the stadium site himself, and was responsible for the building of the structure made entirely out of wood. [1]

Athletic Park replaced Recreation Park. It was on a narrow block bounded by Hemlock Street (west, first base); 6th Avenue (south, a very short right field); Birch Street (east, left field); railroad tracks (northeast); and 5th Avenue imaginary line (north, third base). Newspaper advertisements typically gave the location as "5th and Hemlock". Today, the bend that the joins 4th avenue to 6th avenue under the hemlock viaduct goes right through the Athletic Parks’ former footprint.

The park opened April 17, 1913, with a baseball game featuring the Vancouver Beavers who defeated the Tacoma Tigers 8–4 before a then-record 5,663 spectators. The opening of the facility was launched with an hour-long civic parade, which according to the Vancouver Province, "...commenced at the post office promptly at 2 o'clock and wended its way along Cordova to Main, along Main to Hastings and west along Hastings to Granville and then proceeded up Granville to Fifth Avenue and the ball park." [2]

The first admission prices were 25 and 50 cents. [3]

Significant events

After staging an "all-star" game on Christmas Day 1923, in January and February 1924 the first organized league of "Canadian Rugby Football" in the province of British Columbia was played out of Athletic Park featuring UBC, Knights of Columbus, Y.M.C.A and King George Grads. [4] The odd dates on the calendar for the grid game were due to soccer, rugby and baseball limiting access to the new game. The founding of the four team league is regarded by both the UBC Thunderbirds and Football BC as the start of organized football for both operations.

The first baseball game played under the lights in Canada was won by the Vancouver Firemen 5-3 over Vancouver Arrows, July 3, 1931. [5] In second part of the double header, Vancouver Athletic Club beat B.C. Telephone 1-0. Both games were five innings.

Babe Ruth played at Athletic Park on October 19, 1934, along with his team of "American League All-Stars" that included Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Charlie Gehringer, Heinie Manush, Lefty O'Doul, and manager Connie Mack. [6]

Fire and rebuilding

There were two fires at Athletic Park followed by two rapid rebuilds. The first was in 1926. The second on February 28, 1945, caused $50,000 worth of damage. By then, Emil Sick owned the ball club and the park, which he had renamed Sick's Capilano Stadium in 1944.

The park was demolished in 1951 to allow the Hemlock viaduct to be built. The soil from the park was taken to the newly built Capilano Stadium (II), later renamed Nat Bailey Stadium .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UBC Thunderbirds</span> University of British Columbia athletic teams

The UBC Thunderbirds are the athletic teams that represent the University of British Columbia. In Canadian intercollegiate competition, the Thunderbirds are the most successful athletic program both regionally in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association, and nationally in U Sports, winning 116 national titles. UBC has won an additional 20 national titles competing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics against collegiate competition from the United States and 40 national titles in sports that compete in independent competitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hardy Trophy</span> Canadian sport trophy

The Hardy Trophy is a Canadian sport trophy, presented annually to the winner of the Canada West Universities Athletic Association Football Conference of U Sports, the country's governing body for university athletics. It is named for Evan Hardy, the former head of the agricultural engineering department at the University of Saskatchewan, who had played for the Huskies for its first five years before a rule that only students could play. Hardy continued on as coach and created a western university league. The original trophy was replaced in 1997 after it fell apart during an on-field celebration of the Huskies win in 1996 at home at Griffiths Stadium. The original Hardy trophy was unearthed beneath a pile of storage boxes in 2008 at the University of Saskatchewan. Since 2018, the trophy has been with Canada West conference staff, and has occasionally been displayed at conference football events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Granville station (SkyTrain)</span> Metro Vancouver SkyTrain station

Granville is an underground station on the Expo Line of Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system. The station is located in Downtown Vancouver on the portion of Granville Street that is known as the Granville Mall. The station is accessible from the surface via entrances on Granville Street and Seymour Street, and the Dunsmuir entrance between Granville and Seymour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Bailey Stadium</span>

Rogers Field at Nat Bailey Stadium, also known as The Nat, is a baseball stadium in western Canada, located in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is home to the Vancouver Canadians of the Northwest League High-A.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vancouver Mounties</span> Minor league baseball team

The Vancouver Mounties were a high-level minor league baseball club based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that played in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) from 1956–62 and 1965–69. Its home field was Capilano Stadium. During the Mounties' first two seasons, 1956–57, the PCL still was a member of an experimental organized baseball ranking, the Open Classification, as it made a bid for Major League status. However, in 1958 the PCL reverted to Triple-A when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Athletic Park</span>

Royal Athletic Park is a stadium in Victoria, British Columbia, and is used for baseball, soccer, softball and football, but also hosts special events, such as the annual Great Canadian Beer Festival and previously the Rifflandia Music Festival. It is home to the Victoria HarbourCats Baseball Club of the West Coast League. It is located 1 km from the city centre.

<i>The Ubyssey</i> University of British Columbias student-run paper

The Ubyssey is the University of British Columbia's official, independent student-run paper and is published bi-weekly on Tuesday. Founded on October 18, 1918, The Ubyssey is an independent publication funded by a $7.09 annual fee, from which certain students can opt out. The staff functions as a collective; current UBC students who have contributed to the paper and attend staff meetings are eligible to become staff members. The staff elects the full- and part-time editors on an annual basis. The Ubyssey Publications Society board and president, who deal chiefly with management of the business affairs and strategies of the paper and do not play any editorial role, are elected by the general student body annually at the AMS elections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hastings Mill</span>

Hastings Mill was a sawmill on the south shore of Burrard Inlet and was the first commercial operation around which the settlement that would become Vancouver developed in British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1865 by Edward Stamp, the sawmill operated until its closure in 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thunderbird Stadium</span> Canadian Stadium

Thunderbird Stadium is an outdoor stadium on the University Endowment Lands in British Columbia, Canada. It is located west of Vancouver's city limits, and is primarily used for soccer and football by the UBC Thunderbirds. It seats 3,500 in the main grandstand, plus grass seating for about 5,000 people on the west side and ends of the stadium, and by using the surrounding grass embankment the facility can accommodate up to 12,000 spectators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia Street</span> Canadian urban road in Vancouver and Burnaby

Georgia Street is an east–west street in the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Its section in Downtown Vancouver, designated West Georgia Street, serves as one of the primary streets for the financial and central business districts, and is the major transportation corridor connecting downtown Vancouver with the North Shore by way of the Lions Gate Bridge. The remainder of the street, known as East Georgia Street between Main Street and Boundary Road and simply Georgia Street within Burnaby, is more residential in character, and is discontinuous at several points.

The Vancouver Grizzlies were a Canadian football team that played a single season in 1941 in the Western Interprovincial Football Union, the forerunner of the Canadian Football League West Division. Journalist Jim Coleman was one of the team's co-founders. League play was suspended in 1942 due to the Second World War and the team did not return when WIFU resumed in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Main Street (Vancouver)</span> Major road in Vancouver, British Columbia

Main Street is a major north–south thoroughfare bisecting Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It runs from Waterfront Road by Burrard Inlet in the north, to Kent Avenue alongside the north arm of the Fraser River in the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R4 41st Ave</span> Express bus service in Metro Vancouver, Canada

The R4 41st Ave is an express bus route with bus rapid transit elements in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Part of TransLink's RapidBus network, it replaced the 43 Express that travelled along 41st Avenue, a major east–west route that connects the University of British Columbia (UBC) to the SkyTrain system's Oakridge–41st Avenue station on the Canada Line and Joyce–Collingwood station on the Expo Line.

The British Columbia Men's Premier League is a provincial rugby union competition currently contested by twelve clubs in British Columbia, Canada and one in the U.S. state of Washington. The BC Premier League is organized by the British Columbia Rugby Union.

This is a timeline of the history of Vancouver.

Delbrook Senior Secondary was a public high school from 1957 to 1977 in the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, part of School District 44 North Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shrum Bowl</span> Canadian university football rivalry

The Shrum Bowl was a university rivalry game played between the gridiron football teams of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds and the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Red Leafs. The game was named after Gordon Shrum who was a professor and later a dean at UBC from 1925 to 1961 and served as the first chancellor of SFU from 1964 to 1968. It was a cross-town rivalry with UBC being located in the University Endowment Lands just west of Vancouver, British Columbia, and SFU located approximately 30 kilometres away in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Con Jones Park was a sports facility located in East Vancouver that was mainly used for soccer. It opened in 1921, and was renamed Callister Park in 1942. After the demolition of the stadium in 1971, the area was redeveloped into a green space and retained the name Callister Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Brown (baseball, born 1876)</span> American-born Canadian baseball player, manager, and team owner

Robert Paul Brown was an American-born Canadian professional baseball player, manager, and team owner. He was active in minor league baseball in various capacities from 1900 through 1953, appearing in over 600 games as player and managing for at least 14 seasons. He was a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and served in the U.S. military during the Spanish–American War.

References

  1. The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver - page 84 (Harbour Publishing)
  2. [1] Athletic Park opens, Vancouver Province, April 18, 1913.
  3. The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver - page 84 (Harbour Publishing)
  4. The Ubyssey, pg. 3, "Canadian Rugby" January 24, 1924 - http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/ubyssey/UBYSSEY_1924_01_24.pdf
  5. The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver - page 170 (Harbour Publishing)
  6. [2] Miss 604 - Vancouver History: Athletic Park