Game-day limo and car service - every arena and stadium in Canada

Game day, solved

A sporting event is a concert with a parking problem. The arena district closes to traffic an hour before the puck drops, the lots charge whatever they like, and forty minutes after the final whistle every ride-app in the city is on surge with the pickup zone a ten-minute walk from the gate. The chauffeured alternative is the one every executive box has always used: a fixed fare to an agreed drop-off near the gate, a chauffeur at an agreed pickup point after the game, and nobody in the group driving home. We run it in every city with a team, and for the games across the border.

The venues

Hockey is the calendar: the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, the Bell Centre in Montreal, Rogers Arena in Vancouver, the Saddledome in Calgary, Rogers Place in Edmonton, the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa - which is in Kanata, a proper drive from downtown - and the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg. Football is the CFL - BMO Field in Toronto, Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, Percival Molson in Montreal, TD Place in Ottawa, IG Field in Winnipeg, Mosaic Stadium in Regina, McMahon in Calgary, Commonwealth in Edmonton, BC Place in Vancouver - and the Grey Cup, which moves each November and fills whichever city hosts it. Baseball is the Rogers Centre. Basketball is the Raptors at the Scotiabank Arena. Soccer is Toronto FC, CF Montréal and the Vancouver Whitecaps, and the MLS crowds at BMO Field and Stade Saputo.

Then there are the events that take over a city: the Calgary Stampede's ten days in July, when the Calgary page is worth reading before you land; the Canadian Open golf; the Formula One weekend in Montreal, when the Île Notre-Dame circuit and the downtown hotels are a single traffic system; the Rogers Cup tennis in Toronto and Montreal; the Queen's Plate at Woodbine.

Cross-border games

Buffalo is ninety minutes from Toronto on a good day, and the Bills' stadium in Orchard Park is a short drive beyond the bridge - the cross-border service takes a Sprinter of fans from a Toronto pickup to the tailgate and back the same night, with a chauffeur who knows the Peace Bridge and the Lewiston-Queenston crossing and which is quicker at 5 pm on a Sunday. Detroit's Lions, Red Wings, Tigers and Pistons are the same trip from Windsor or London; Seattle's Seahawks, Mariners and Kraken from Vancouver via the Peace Arch. Bring a passport or a NEXUS card for every passenger; the chauffeur handles the rest.

How the booking works

Book a transfer to the venue with the game time and the engine prices the fixed fare to a drop-off point the chauffeur knows is open on game day - usually a hotel forecourt or a side street a few minutes' walk from the gate, inside the road closures where a pre-arranged car may go. Book the return for the expected end time; the chauffeur watches the game and is at the pickup point when it ends, and overtime costs you the class's waiting rate beyond the included fifteen minutes rather than a surge multiplier. For a day that includes a pre-game restaurant and a post-game bar, the hourly chauffeur is the simpler booking.

Vehicles for game day

The Luxury SUV is the game-day car: six seats, room for the coats and the merchandise, and the ride height for a snowy February night outside the Saddledome. The Executive Sprinter takes fourteen - the office group, the hockey parents, the bachelor party going to the Jays - and is the vehicle for the cross-border tailgate. The stretch limousine turns a birthday at the game into an occasion. The Premium Sedan takes the season-ticket holder and a guest to the box. The fleet page has the capacities.

Corporate hospitality

Companies with a suite or a block of seats book the guests' transport on the corporate account: a car for each guest or a Sprinter for the group, meet-and-greet at the hotel if the guests are from out of town, and every trip on one invoice. For a client landing at Pearson at 4 pm for a 7 pm puck drop, one booking covers the airport pickup, the hotel check-in and the arena, and the chauffeur has the tickets if the host wants them delivered to the car.

Team travel and youth sport

Minor-hockey teams travelling to a tournament, university teams, a masters' team flying in for the nationals: a Sprinter or a coach from the airport to the hotel to the rink, held for the weekend, priced as one plan. The equipment goes in the bays; the parents go in the SUVs; the coach knows the arena's bus entrance. The airport transfer for the team's flight is on the same booking.

The Stampede, in particular

For ten days each July Calgary's downtown becomes the Stampede grounds' car park, every hotel is full and every car in the city is spoken for. Corporate Calgary books its Stampede transport in the spring: the airport transfers for the guests, the hourly chauffeurs for the round of hospitality tents, the Sprinters for the Stampede breakfasts and the chuckwagon evenings. The Calgary page has the traffic notes; the desk has the dates.

The hockey night, worked through

A Saturday in February in Toronto: four friends, a 7 pm face-off at the Scotiabank Arena, dinner first on King West. The Luxury SUV collects from Leaside at 4:45, the restaurant at 5:15, the drop at the Front Street hotel forecourt at 6:35, a five-minute walk to the gate. The game ends at 9:50 and the SUV is at the same forecourt at 10:05, texted; overtime would have cost the class's waiting rate for the extra twenty minutes rather than a tripled app fare. Home to Leaside by 10:45. Booked as an hourly chauffeur the fare covered the whole evening; booked as three transfers it would have been three fixed fares and the same chauffeur, and the engine would have shown both. On the same night in Montreal the shape is identical with the Bell Centre and a Plateau restaurant; in Edmonton it is Rogers Place and the Ice District at minus twenty, which is when the warm car outside the door earns its fare.

The Grey Cup and the away weekend

The Grey Cup moves each November and takes over its host city for a week - the festival, the parties, the game. Fans travel for it, and the booking is an airport transfer from the host city's airport, a Sprinter for the group to the festival sites, and the game-day transfer to the stadium. The Canadian Football League publishes the host city two years ahead; the hotels sell out a year ahead; the transport should be booked when the tickets are. The same pattern covers the away weekend for any team's travelling fans - the Jays in Seattle via the cross-border service from Vancouver, the Raptors' road games, the Whitecaps in Portland.

Golf, tennis, motorsport and the marathon

The RBC Canadian Open and the CPKC Women's Open rotate among the country's clubs and the drop-off at a golf major is a shuttle lot a kilometre from the gate; a chauffeur with the tournament's vehicle pass and the hospitality-tent entrance is the difference. The National Bank Open tennis in Toronto and Montreal, the Honda Indy on Toronto's lakeshore, the Canadian Grand Prix on Île Notre-Dame in Montreal - each has road closures the city publishes the week before and a pre-arranged car route inside them. Marathon Sundays close the downtown cores of Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal for the morning, and the chauffeur who knows the crossing points gets the runner to the start and the family to the finish.

Skiing and the mountain sports

Ski days are a sporting event with equipment. Vancouver to Whistler, Calgary to Banff, Lake Louise or Sunshine, Toronto to Blue Mountain, Montreal to Tremblant: a city-to-city fixed fare in a Luxury SUV with the skis in the back and the return built in, or an hourly booking for the family that wants the car at the base all day. Early-season and late-season roads are the chauffeur's business; the British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec pages carry the seasonal notes.

Youth tournaments and the team weekend

Minor-hockey tournaments fill Canadian rinks every winter weekend and the team travel is a plan: the airport transfer for the team's flight, a Sprinter or a coach from the hotel to the rink and back for each game, the parents in SUVs, the equipment in the bays. The desk prices the weekend as one plan and invoices the team; the chauffeurs know which rinks have a bus entrance and which have a parking lot the size of a postage stamp. Hockey Canada's tournament calendar is where the weekends come from; the same plan covers soccer, basketball, swimming and the provincial games.

Sportsbooks, boxes and the corporate season ticket

Companies with a suite book the season's guest transport once on the corporate account and cancel by exception: a car for each guest from the hotel or the office to the suite entrance, the meet-and-greet at the airport for the client flown in for the game, and the return when the host texts. The suite entrance at every arena has its own curb and the chauffeur uses it.

Booking, in thirty seconds

Enter the venue by name, the game's start time, and the number in the group; the engine sets the drop-off point, prices the fixed fare for the class that fits the group, and offers the return. For the cross-border games add every passenger's name so the chauffeur's manifest matches the documents at the bridge. Season-ticket holders and suite owners set the standing booking once on the corporate account and cancel by exception. And on the nights the app is showing a car twenty minutes away at four times the fare, the chauffeur is at the forecourt with the heater on. Playoff runs are the one exception to same-day booking: when a series goes to a seventh game every car in the city is spoken for by noon, and the fans who booked the moment the schedule was announced are the ones who ride home warm.

Book game-day transport