Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 01:32:00

Led Zeppelin used it as a North American base of operations in the early 1970s, Jimi Hendrix played it nine months after it opened, and the Canucks called it home for a quarter century. The Pacific Coliseum, at 100 North Renfrew Street on the Pacific National Exhibition grounds in Vancouver, opened on 8 January 1968 and remains the city's hardest-working arena. The building is a piece of 1960s Formalism: architect W.K. Noppe's circular bowl with its distinctive ring of white panels cost 6 million Canadian dollars, replaced the 5,000-seat Forum as Vancouver's major ice venue, and its plans were reused for Edmonton's Northlands Coliseum. The hockey history is foundational: the Canucks played here as a WHL club from 1968 and as an NHL franchise from their first game on 9 October 1970 - a 3-1 loss to Los Angeles before a sellout 15,062 - until the 1995 move downtown; the WHL Giants followed, and since 2025 the building is home ice for the PWHL's Vancouver Goldeneyes, whose debut drew a record 14,958. The concert resume matches: Hendrix in September 1968, Led Zeppelin repeatedly from December 1968, the Rolling Stones' infamous 1972 riot show, and a steady flow of arena tours ever since, with configurations from a 4,200-seat mini bowl up to 17,500 in the round. The Olympic chapter came in 2010, when the Coliseum hosted figure skating and short track speed skating for the Winter Games - the events that produced some of those Olympics' most-watched nights. Practical notes: permanent seating runs 15,713 with floor seats pushing concerts toward 17,500; the Hastings Park site sits east of downtown with event parking on the PNE grounds, and late-summer bookings share the property with the PNE Fair, when arena crowds and midway crowds merge. The nickname the Rink on Renfrew stuck through every era, and the building's 68-foot ceiling clearance and 56,825-square-foot floor keep it in rotation for trade shows, film shoots and soundstage work between hockey and touring dates.