MTS Centre gets new beer, bathrooms and lounges

True North Sports and Entertainment has spent $6 million on upgrading the 300 level for fans.

Heroes, a new bar with a rib-carving station and place to eat, went in near the southeastbalcony and not far away near the southwestbalcony The Towerwent in.

The full-service bar will offer food and a view the lounge has floor-to-ceiling windows.

This was just open air space before, said KevinDonnelly, True Norths senior vice president of venues and entertainment. The idea sort of percolated for about three or four years, and we pulled the pin.

More beer, more bathrooms

The MTS Centre has also expanded the types of beers offered to visitors.

The new beers are Stella, Corona, Shocktop, Rolling Rock and Keith, he said. Keiths [was here before], the rest were not. If they were available, they were available at suite level only.

With more beer, also comes more bathrooms.

True North has upped the number of mens stalls from 36 to 75 while womens went up from 44 to 57.

We did notice tremendous lineups at this end of the building, he said. [We] feel that this really will do a significant job in moving people out of these lineups and back into enjoying the game.

Womens washrooms were also moved to a busy hallway to avoid long lineups of men in that spot, Donnelly said.

It depends on the event. When we have Michael Buble or different concert events, theres far more women, but for hockey, the number is skewed to more males, he said. For sure for hockey you need to accommodate the male patron.

He said there are more actual stalls with doors for women than men, but with the number of urinals added, men have more options.

More work on the way

Suite visitors also have a new lounge just for them, and the ground-level Jets Gear Store was expanded.

The Eatons window that used to be here, its now been removed and donated to the museum and this new lounge weve created for suite patrons will be open tonight for the first time, said Donnelly.

The renovations started at the end of last season, and more work is on the way.

True North plans to spend a total of $40 million by 2020.