Despite an unfortunate loss on opening day at the newly-revitalized Richardson Stadium, the Queen’s Gaels, Queen’s University and the city of Kingston all remain winners. What currently stands as one of Canada’s premier collegiate football stadiums, Richardson Stadium is a sight to behold now that it is finally complete.
We began the preliminary stages of this project over a year ago and since have been involved with one of the most talked-about and memorable stadium openings in eastern Ontario. As crews demolished this historic stadium, we were more than proud to be a part of the re-designing and re-building of such an iconic athletic institution.
Placing 8,000 seats was no easy feat, but along with the other key partners and stakeholders involved in this project, we all teamed up and saw the project through to fruition. In fact, before its grand unveiling, Gaels Football Coach Pat Sheahan believed this new venue would serve a number of different purposes, both within the university and beyond.
“It is a very intimate venue, tremendously welcoming with the amenities, the seating, the press box. I could see some CFL teams wanting to do their preseason games here,” Sheahan told the whig.
The bowl-style seating design was envisioned from the beginning and finally instituted, guaranteeing the very best viewing experience possible. The seating begins at a six-foot elevation above field level, bringing fans closer to the game than they had ever expected.
As fans piled into the new stadium on that long-awaited Saturday afternoon, the reactions all reflected feelings of awe and excitement as they patiently awaited kick off. The rainy and cold weather seemed to keep a good chunk of would-be fans at bay, but the boys in the tri-colours played hard until the bitter end in their newly-minted home.
As coach Sheahan stated, this was just the beginning of “a whole new era of football.”