Tradition, history, Vancouver has some grand ones when it comes to sports but there’s nowhere else with quite as much history as Empire Field.
With BC Place currently under construction, Vancouver’s football and soccer teams have needed a place to play and there’s no better place in the ciry, especially for those with an appreciation of the old school. Empire Stadium was a multipurpose beast that formerly stood at the Pacific National Exhibition site on the edge of east Vancouver. It hosted Grey Cups, four minute miles and the first Vancouver appearances of both Elvis and the Beatles.
It was the first home to the Vancouver Whitecaps during the launch of the North American Soccer League and it was the outdoor venue for BC Lions games for thirty years. It was the only game in town for so long, so it’s been a beautiful thing to see the purposes built Empire Field serving the same task all these years later while the newly arrived Whitecaps and the Lions require somewhere to be.
The return of the Vancouver Whitecaps to major league soccer after many years has left the city buzzing over the opportunity to see the likes of Beckham and Thierry Henry come through the city, so it’s a payoff to be seeing them in a space where tradition holds just as much sway here as say Old Trafford does in Manchester