The Canadiens HOF at Bell Centre, which opened in '10 as a "tribute to the storied history" of the team, "will shut its doors for good on Aug. 30," according to Dave Stubbs of the MONTREAL GAZETTE. The team said that "major renovations" at Bell Centre "will claim the space to 'enhance the fan experience' at the arena." Many individual items and collections on loan to the team "will be returned" to the Hockey HOF, team alumni and fans who "from far and wide have offered unique pieces, some of them priceless." The Bell Centre box office "once occupied this basement space, but it was moved upstairs for the centennial season." In concert with the box-office move and creation of the HOF, the Canadiens "opened a large souvenir store inside the Lucien-L’Allier commuter-train terminal." The "first phase of the Tour des Canadiens, a still-rising 50-storey condo project on that space, gutted the plaza." The redesigned plaza, now "under construction on the east side of the arena," will "include all aspects of the old as a centrepiece in a new courtyard." It will include the "bricks, tributes to all 24 Stanley Cup-winning teams and each of the 17 players whose Canadiens jersey has been retired, as well as a monument that catalogues every player who skated for the Habs in the club’s first century, with major award winners listed" (MONTREAL GAZETTE, 8/15).
