Two major facilities that will re-define Langley’s sports landscape when it comes to soccer and hockey achieved milestones in 2023.
For the new soccer stadium at the Willoughby Community Park, the entire structure went from flat-pack kit arriving in cargo containers to hosting Vancouver FC games in the course of one year.
Construction began in February, with the pre-fab components of the new outdoor stadium going up swiftly.
So swiftly, in fact, that Vancouver FC took to the field for its first game against Cavalry FC on May 7.
“We have been building this club brick by brick, from the players and coaches to the staff and stadium, from the ground up,” club owner and president Rob Friend said just before that first home game. “We are ready to put the final piece in place by hosting our fans at our new stadium.”
But those first-game seats had to be sold out fast.
“We couldn’t sell tickets until the day before the stadium opened for our home opener because we didn’t have a stadium map,” Friend told the Langley Advance Times later in the year.
The new stadium can seat more than 6,500 fans and features a supporters’ section in the south grandstand.
“The beautiful thing about VFC’s stadium is its ability to grow and expand with the needs of the community and we are excited to be a part of that growth,” Friend said.
Vancouver FC was founded in 2022 as part of the Canadian Premier League.
The team’s progress from not even having a stadium to a year-end winning streak as they improved was the local sports story of the year.
Meanwhile, Langley Township moved forward with another major sports project just a few hundred yards away on the other side of the Langley Events Centre.
A five-arena facility will add three more ice rinks and two dry floors to the LEC complex. With funding approved over the summer, the $149 million facility is expected to see construction start this winter.
The building will be the first in Canada to be built in a unique configuration – the three ice rinks will be the ground floor, and two dry-floor arenas will be stacked above them in a second storey.
It will also be the first facility on the LEC site to have underground parking, to preserve future land there for other projects.
