The BC Lions held an open house for their season ticket holders on Sunday and the early reviews are in. Football is going to be a lot of fun this season.

When you walk into Empire Field, you have to be pretty impressed at what has been constructed there in such a short period of time. The stadium is going to provide an up close and personal view of the game for football fans this season, that will put them right on top of the action. The side line seating is similar to the look of the original stadium with its column supported roof. The seats along the sidelines and in the corners are a black molded plastic seat while the end zones are bench style aluminum seating.The seats are completely filled in so there is no danger of dropping your wallet into the scaffolding maze under the seats.

The replay screen sits in the north end zone. It’s fairly small and the picture didn’t look that great and it also may get washed out in the sun at certain times of the day. There are two scoreboard style clocks that show the time, down, and score that are in opposite corners that should be visible to all fans.

The real surprise was the presence of a new field turf playing surface. Original plans had called for the turf from BC Place to be used, but it’s clear this surface is new by the colour of it. The surface looks great but if you’re hoping for the advertising free field we’ve enjoyed at BC Place, word is this surface will be painted up with sponsorship. Hopefully they can find room for a Lions logo as well.

Cons? Well washroom lineups could be long as only 150 portable toilets are on the site, in addition to washroom trailers. There will also only be three concessions maximum on the east side of the stadium, and the ticket person I talked to said they still didn’t know the exact locations.

Overall, I was very impressed with the facility and what they were able to do in such a short period of time. Many football fans in BC will be getting their first outdoor game experience and on a day like today, it’s hard to imagine them not thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Here’s a look at all our photos from the day for those that couldn’t make it out today!

Photos from the afternoon session of BC Lions training camp on June 8th, 2010 in Kamloops, BC

A recap of our live blog of the session can be found here.

Here are the photos from the June 8th morning session of BC Lions training camp in Kamloops, BC. The morning live blog recap is here.

The afternoon session of June 7th was less physical than the first three of camp, and that was understandable with three fights in the first three sessions, the coaches decided to throttle the boys back a bit with less contact drills, more focus on systems, and a pad-less scrimmage to close things out.

There weren’t really any standouts in the afternoon, as the drills weren’t really telling as far as evaluating talent. But we can tell you this, Emmanuel Arcenaux is going to have a huge year.

Here is our live blog of the afternoon’s proceedings, and of course a gallery of photos.

The morning session on June 7th produced some physical football on day two of training camp. Big hits, and a some heavyweight punches by Justin Sorensen on Jeremy Gibbs showed the intensity on the field was reaching new levels.

Here are some photos of the morning session, and you can review our live blog of the session here.

It was a crisp morning but the weather was perfect to kick off day one of BC Lions training camp in Kamloops. The Lions took to the field in a very workmanlike manner, and the intensity was high for the first practice of camp. There were great catches, interceptions and even a few big hits in the morning session of day one, a session that had the defense looking a little sharper than the offense early on. We have some highlights of the first practice here, and you can see some pictures below.

Be sure to check back this afternoon as we will live blog from the afternoon session as well.

I thought it would be kind of cool to keep a photo journal of the construction of Empire Field, the 2010 home of the BC Lions that will be built at the site of the old Empire Stadium. I took a drive down today and snapped these pictures to start off our series. Hopefully I can keep this updated from now until it’s finished at various intervals.

The view from the south endzone of the North Shore Mountains

At this stage there is a lot prep work for the field going down, some leveling and drainage preparation by the looks of things. Some of the bleachers have arrived, and were used at Cypress Mountain for the Olympics.

Standing in the South endzone and looking at the North Shore mountains, I got pretty excited about watching outdoor football this season!

The BC Lions returned to the location it all began this past weekend, holding a community practice and autograph session at Empire Field, the former home to Empire Stadium which was the club’s original home. Empire was demolished after the construction of BC Place stadium.

Here are a few pictures from the event. It sure would be nice is someone could find a way to build a new stadium in this spot.

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Abbotsford BC – The BC Lions held their annual fan fest Sunday under sunny skies at Rotary Stadium in Abbotsford, home of the team’s 2009 training camp. The event is somewhat of a pep rally for the team, where fans can mingle with their favourite players as well as get autographs and pictures. There are activities for children, a silent auction and a 50/50 draw to support high school football.

The players were brought in through a line of high school players from WJ Mouat Secondary and the sound of drums before dispersing to sign autographs and pose for photographs with fans.

The afternoon concluded with a team scrimmage that saw some nice plays by the likes of Andrew Harris, Geroy Simon, Buck Pierce, and Terence Scott among others.

Check out our Fan Fest 2009 photo gallery!

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