York Lions Stadium


York Lions Stadium is an outdoor athletics facility on the campus of Toronto's York University. It is home to the York Lions, the athletic teams of York University. The facility was primarily built for the 2015 Pan-American and Parapan American Games, where it hosted track and field events. It also hosted the opening ceremony for the 2015 Parapan American Games. During the games the venue was known as the CIBC Pan Am and Parapan Am Athletics Stadium.

History

Initial plans had a multi-purpose athletics and soccer stadium to be built somewhere in the vicinity of Hamilton, Ontario; however, the final plans separated the soccer and athletics venues. The soccer stadium, Tim Hortons Field, was built on the site of Ivor Wynne Stadium, while the athletics stadium was built at York University. The Hamilton stadium will not use the corporate name of that facility.
The stadium was expected to seat approximately 5,000 spectators. The facility cost roughly $45.5 million.
On May 26, 2016 it was announced that the stadium would play host to the 2017 North American Indigenous Games. The stadium will be the site of the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the athletics competitions in July 2017. In the same year, the stadium was also used as an event facility for the Invictus Games.

Professional sports

The Toronto Arrows, a professional rugby union club which will join Major League Rugby for the 2019 season, played exhibition games in 2018 at York Lions Stadium. However, the team will split its home games at Alumni Field and Lamport Stadium during its inaugural 2019 MLR season.
York9 FC, a soccer team in the new Canadian Premier League, is playing at the stadium in its initial seasons while planning and constructing their own stadium in York Region.

Major competitions hosted