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Sorry to say that Edmonton whips us even when it comes to the name of the project. “Ice District” is apt and sounds immediately interesting. No one was ever going to say, “I’m heading down to RendezVous LeBreton tonight.”

Photo by Larry Wong / POSTMEDIA NETWORK

Edmonton’s Ice District is revitalizing the city’s downtown and has become a point of civic pride, but the agreement that led to the deal did not come easily. It took years of wrangling between Oilers’ owner Daryl Katz and the city before a deal was reached.

Unlike Ottawa, Edmonton had two key advantages. It had a city government that was prepared to put money into its downtown. In Katz it had an owner who is rich, determined and a property developer. Here, we have a mayor who proudly stated that the city would not contribute a cent towards a hockey rink and an owner without much money and even less property development experience.

Getting Edmonton to contribute to the rink was a tough sell, but the city did it without creating an increase in residential property taxes. The city owns the land and rink and agreed to pay a little more than half the $614 million cost of the project. It will cover those expenses with a levy on downtown business, rent from the Oilers and a ticket surcharge. Those are all tools that could be used here.

The other key obstacle Ottawa faces is the current lack of enthusiasm for the hockey team. The Senators are dead last in average attendance. That’s quite a feat in a league that has teams in hockey hotbeds such as Florida and Arizona. Ottawa’s attendance is, in effect, a fan boycott. Edmonton, by contrast, is only in the middle of the pack for attendance at 17,569 a game so far this year, but that’s 5,035 more than Ottawa is getting.