Scotia Place Turned the Corner. From Scotsman's Hill, It Finally Looks Different.

Scotsman’s Hill — The cladding has turned the corner. From the hill, Scotia Place no longer looks like a green box.

That was the thing we said to watch for when we were last up here, on August 22. Back then the west and north faces had started to close in with metal panel, but Scotsman’s Hill looks at the east face, and the east face was still bare green weather wrap. From the one place most of Calgary sees the building, nothing had changed since July.

We went back on Saturday evening and stood in the same spot, beside the teepee sculpture, where we also stood on our first visit in July. Three shoots, one frame: In July the east face was open steel with green wrap going on. In August it was a green box. Now it is mostly white panel with a broad tan and gold block across it. The green is down to patches and the low structure along the bottom.

Down at street level the panel on the bowl was already up in August. What changed is the glass. The corner under the angled canopy by the plaza was open steel five weeks ago, and it is now a tall glazed lobby. The open structural bay on the other side of the building is still open, so this is not finished. It is, for the first time, a building you can picture people walking into.

A reader asked us about the cranes, so we looked at every frame from Saturday. Two were on site. The tall white one at the back of the building is a lattice-boom crane, the kind with an open steel truss for a boom, and it carries the name of Myshak, an Alberta crane and rigging company. The orange one with the telescoping boom and a fold-out jib belongs to XCaliber Crane and Rigging, which works across Western Canada. The red machines with baskets along the street side are aerial work platforms, lifts for people rather than loads, so they don’t count. In July the crane in our frames was a red telescopic one lettered for Mammoet, the Dutch heavy-lift company; in August there was a red telescopic crane on site.

The hoarding is still making the same pitch: “Unmistakably and Unforgettably Calgary.” “We’re in the middle of a line change. Home ice incoming.” And CANA’s name is still on every concrete barrier. CANA built the Saddledome in 1983 and is now, with Mortenson, the general contractor on the building that replaces it.

The Saddledome itself was busy while we were up there. The lot was full and a line of coach buses was parked at the building, and it was not for hockey: the Flames were in Edmonton. It was Journey, on a tour sold to fans as a farewell, playing a building in its last season. The Calgary Herald’s Eric Volmers reviewed the show and noted two things that belong in this story. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain came out in a Flames jersey. And the opening songs were muddied by what he called “the Dome’s trademark slushy sound.” Nearly forty-three years in, the building still has its quirks, and people still come.

Journey’s own history with the building is shorter than you might guess: three Saddledome shows, all in the last fourteen years. The first was November 25, 2012, a triple bill with Night Ranger and Loverboy, a band that formed in Calgary, on the night the Stampeders lost the Grey Cup. The Calgary Sun’s Gerry Krochak opened his review with the Stampeders fans. The second was with Toto in March 2024, and Saturday was the third. The Calgary Herald’s archive has no Journey concert at the Dome in the 28 years before that.

Their Calgary history goes back further, though, and it ends up in the same spot. On April 26, 1982, Journey played the Stampede Corral, with the Greg Kihn Band opening, while the arena that became the Saddledome was going up next door. Forty-four years later they played that building with its own replacement going up beside it.

The cover photo is from Sunday, September 20, the night of the preseason game against Seattle. It is the old building doing what it does best from this hill at dusk: the roofline lit red, the skyline behind it, and the new arena standing off to the right.

What happens to the old building is settled, at least on paper. The City’s Scotia Place FAQ says it plainly: “When Scotia Place opens, The City of Calgary will demolish the Scotiabank Saddledome.” The Government of Alberta is paying for the demolition, and the Stampede keeps the land. The City’s timeline has Scotia Place handed to the Flames’ owners in the fall of 2027 and open for the 2027-28 season.

The farewell season starts at home on Thursday, October 1, against Seattle. Two weeks after the opener, on October 15, forty-three years to the day after the doors opened, Riley Quinn starts the Last Yee-Haw: how the Saddledome got built, what happened inside it, and what Calgary loses when it goes.

Worth watching this winter: the lights. When Scotia Place is lit from the hill at night, it stops being the building next door and becomes the one the Saddledome is handing over to.

Independent commentary. Not affiliated with the Calgary Flames or the NHL.