Empire Stadium, Vancouver
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Empire Stadium was a multipurpose stadium that formerly stood at the Pacific National Exhibition site at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia. Track and field and Canadian football, as well as soccer and musical events, were held in the stadium. The stadium was originally constructed for the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. The stadium, which sat 32,375, was Vancouver's venue for both Elvis Presley and The Beatles. It saw most of its use as the home of the B.C. Lions of the CFL from 1954-1982, in which the venue also played host to the first Grey Cup game held west of Ontario in 1955. Empire Stadium also hosted the Grey Cup game in 1958, 1960, 1963, 1966, 1971, and 1974; seven times in total.
The stadium was also home to the Vancouver Whitecaps of the North American Soccer League during the 1970s and early 1980s, as well as the Vancouver Royals of the same league for their only year of play in 1968.
Both the Lions and Whitecaps moved to BC Place Stadium for the 1983 season. The stadium was demolished shortly afterwards. The site served as a parking lot for the neighbouring Pacific National Exhibition as well as Playland for many years before being converted to a soccer field and track on the site of the old field.
[edit] The Miracle Mile
Vancouver hosted the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1954 at Empire Stadium. The most famous event of the games was the One Mile Race in which both John Landy and Roger Bannister ran the distance in under four minutes. See four-minute mile for a historical perspective on this accomplishment. The race's end is memorialized in a statue of the two (with Landy glancing over his shoulder, thus losing the race), that stood outside the stadium until its demolition. The statue now stands near the site of the former stadium.
