Riders-Seats-June251

One of the broken seats in the north end zone stands at Mosaic Stadium.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders renovations to Mosaic Stadium didn’t go over so well in the north end zone during Friday night’s preseason game.  There was a large number of seats breaking off and complaints of terrible sight lines from fans.

"We definitely had some issues there and we are going to make sure that they are rectified before the next game," stated Riders president and CEO Jim Hopson during practice at Mosaic Stadium on Monday as crews worked on facility.  "The installation was not appropriate and we’ve got insurances from the contractor that they’re going to tear it right down and redo it to make sure it works for us and our fans."

Hopson says they’ve got a couple weeks before the home opener on July 8th and they will get the work done.  "They’re going to take all the seats out and then do a reinstall with an upgraded install because there was several seats that came loose or right out and broke.  I understand it has to do with the weld and how it was done," said Hopson.  "They’re confident that there’s a solution and quite frankly we need one or we’re not going to put people in them.  They’ll be safe and ready to go."

There were no serious injuries during Friday’s game, but Hopson says even what happened was enough, "We had some people that got nicked, we haven’t had any reports of serious injuries, but even the nicks aren’t acceptable and of course, it kind of ruins your game day experience when that happens, so we’re trying to take care of those folks."

Outside the north end zone, Hopson says the renovations got an overall positive response, "Generally the reviews in the South were very positive, but we’ve got to work with what we have in the North."

"People liked the look of the stadium, the feel of the stadium.  They loved the new (video) boards.  A lot of positive comments about the seats in both end zone, but that to us is out weight by the fact that we’ve got some problems and we’ve got fix them."

Hopson expected the work to start right away on the seating in the north end zone and be ready for the Edmonton Eskimos trip to Mosaic Stadium on July 8th.