World-class short-track speed skating event to return annually to Vancouver | Daily Hive

World-class short-track speed skating competition to return annually to Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum

ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kevin Light/Speed Skating Canada)

The world’s top short-track speed skaters are set to return to Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum every year through the end of the decade at least.

It is all part of the International Skating Union’s (ISU) annual globe-trotting, multi-city competition tour, and Speed Skating Canada’s pursuit of bringing the sport’s ultimate event outside of the Winter Olympics — the World Championships — to this venue.

This past weekend’s inaugural Vancouver stop on the ISU Short Track World Tour marked the PNE fairgrounds’ first international short-track competition since the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Held from Oct. 23 to 25, 2026, it opened the tour’s 2026/2027 season.

For Joe Morissette, the CEO of Speed Skating Canada, the national sports organization behind the tour’s Vancouver stop, the return of speed skating at this venue is the beginning of a longer effort to build an audience and interest for the sport on the West Coast.

“We’re here to stay. It’s a great venue, a great city, and we love Vancouver, and we’re going to grow the sport here out west,” Morissette told Offside in an interview at the Pacific Coliseum on Sunday.

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He said the current tentative plan is to continue hosting an annual stop in Vancouver up to at least 2030. Separately, the organization has submitted a bid to the ISU to host the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships at the Pacific Coliseum that year, after the 2030 Winter Olympics in France.

ISU is the international governing body of short-track speed skating — as well as speed skating (long track) and figure skating — and stages the competitions for the sport during the Winter Olympics and the global events during the intervening period, such as the World Tour and World Championships.

Speed Skating Canada’s strategy to stage a recurring Vancouver event is part of a push to take more international competitions beyond the Canadian cities that have traditionally hosted them, including Montreal, Quebec City, and Calgary.

“We needed to sort of expand our reach to new cities,” said Morissette. “We’re looking at events in Toronto, but Vancouver seemed a logical next step for us.”

isu short track speed skating world tour october 2026 pacific coliseum vancouver

Joe Morissette, CEO of Speed Skating Canada; ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kenneth Chan)

ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kenneth Chan)

Back at the Pacific Coliseum for the final day of the ISU Short Track World Tour in Vancouver. ⛸️

Incredible to watch these skaters fly around the ice at 50+ km/h. #speedskating https://t.co/Vj8AAz8tNt

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) October 26, 2026

South Korea took the 5000m men’s team relay gold medal after hunting down Canada in the final seconds of the race at Pacific Coliseum.

A thrilling end to the first-ever ISU Short Track World Tour stop in Vancouver. #speedskating https://t.co/6S536G9u53

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) October 26, 2026

He said a multi-year presence can help attract more sponsors, although reaching new fans and encouraging more people to take up the sport are central reasons for the Vancouver expansion.

This season’s World Tour has seven stops. After kicking off in Vancouver this past weekend, it heads to Montreal this coming weekend, followed by competitions in Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, and Gdansk, Poland. The season’s last stop will be in Tilburg, Netherlands, in February 2027.

The racing puts skaters in close quarters as they battle for position around a 111.12-metre oval, consistently reaching speeds of over 50 km/h. Individual events cover 500, 1,000, and 1,500 metres, alongside women’s, men’s, and mixed relays.

Approximately 150 athletes — including some champions from the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics and other events — from 28 countries were in Vancouver, with the visiting contingent approaching 250 people when their support staff were included.

Morissette said ticket sales were meeting his organization’s deliberately modest expectations for its first year, with about 5,000 people on Saturday and roughly 5,500 people on the final day on Sunday.

“We’re on target for our ticket sales for our first year in this venue,” he told Offside.

Similar to the setup for the PWHL’s Vancouver Goldeneyes, most of the upper bowl of the Pacific Coliseum was curtained off to reduce the visibility of the venue’s full 15,000-seat capacity. This creates a more intimate fan atmosphere.

However, Morissette’s longer-term ambition is to fill the entire Pacific Coliseum.

“We had put some modest goals there, but eventually we’d like to see this place filled with 15,000 screaming fans,” he said. “I’d love to see this venue sold out.”

He pointed to Montreal, where Speed Skating Canada has demonstrated their ability to sell out competitions held at the 1962-built Maurice Richard Arena — a much smaller venue with a capacity of 4,800 seats — as an example of the audience it hopes to develop in Vancouver. Over the decades, that Montreal venue has been frequently used by the organization for various events, including most recently the Canadian Short Track Speed Skating Championships last month and ISU’s 2026 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships this past March.

For future iterations of the ISU Short Track World Tour in Vancouver, there is also room to add more entertainment around the racing. Morissette recalled attending a World Tour event in Rotterdam where a live DJ and house band helped give the competition a festival atmosphere.

Vancouver already had a DJ, but he sees opportunities to build on that experience in future years.

“I think we can up our game a little bit more in the future,” he said.

In some ways, the combination of the fan atmosphere, upbeat music, and the fast pace and turnover of the races this past weekend can be likened to a smaller version of the Canada Sevens, which is the annual Vancouver stop of World Rugby’s HSBC Seven Series — held each year at BC Place Stadium, as a part of a world tour for the sport.

ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kevin Light/Speed Skating Canada)

Preparing the Pacific Coliseum for its first-ever World Tour required more than putting skaters on its usual ice hockey rink.

The Goldeneyes play on an NHL-sized ice surface, while international short track requires a wider rink. As a permanent legacy of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Pacific Coliseum retained the ability to provide the larger Olympic-sized ice surface.

Morissette said that wider ice surface capability was tested this past June, as it had not been activated since 2010. After being dormant for more than 16 years, the expanded ice surface system still “worked really well” during that initial test.

In the weeks leading up to the World Tour, specialists in making short track ice were then brought in to help prepare the surface.

Speed Skating Canada also purchased a new system of protective crash pads, which will remain stored at the venue.

Local volunteers were trained for specialized duties, including working as track stewards. These were the crews, dressed in full white, who were continuously seen repairing the ice and repositioning the markers that define the racing circuit.

Recent renovations made for the Goldeneyes’ anchor tenancy have also made the 1968-built Pacific Coliseum more appealing.

Morissette singled out improvements to the locker rooms and suites, as well as the installation of the brand-new, centre-suspended videoboard. He said the World Tour operational setup could have installed a temporary scoreboard, but doing so would have added to the event’s costs.

ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kenneth Chan)

The Canadian team competing in Vancouver, nicknamed the “Canadian Iced Maples”, were given a chance to meet fans beyond their familiar Montreal audience.

Morissette said athletes were pleased with the ice and their experience in Vancouver. It also introduced younger skaters to the demands of travelling for international competition. For less-experienced team members, the trip also provided practice in adjusting to time-zone changes and managing competition away from their usual surroundings.

Canada finished the inaugural World Tour weekend in Vancouver with five medals: two gold and three silver.

On Saturday, Courtney Sarault, Florence Brunelle, Danae Blais, and Claudia Gagnon captured gold in the women’s 3,000-metre team relay, while Maxime Laoun earned silver in the men’s 500 metres. Canada added three more medals on Sunday, with Sarault winning gold in the women’s 1,500 metres and silver in the 500 metres. The Canadian men capped the weekend with silver in the 5,000-metre team relay, finishing behind South Korea.

Morissette said the home crowd’s support had an emotional impact on the Canadian women after their relay victory.

“You saw when our ladies received the gold medal, they had tears in their eyes, and they’re really appreciative [of] how much the crowd got behind them,” he told Offside in the interview.

Courtney Sarault #1; ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kevin Light/Speed Skating Canada)

Mathieu Pelletier #66, Maxime Laoun #26, Félix Roussel #11, and Steven Dubois #3; ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kevin Light/Speed Skating Canada)

Maxime Laoun #26; ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kevin Light/Speed Skating Canada)

Mathieu Pelletier #66, Maxime Laoun #26, Félix Roussel #11, and Steven Dubois #3; Maxime Laoun #26; ISU Short Track World Tour at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum, October 2026. (Kevin Light/Speed Skating Canada)

Beyond the national team’s results, he hopes the event will encourage more British Columbians to join local speed skating clubs.

He said the province has a strong grassroots foundation and has produced successful national team skaters, but lost some international hosting momentum after the long track at Richmond Olympic Oval was taken out of use. That facility saw a post-Olympics transformation into a community and recreational facility for a wide range of sports, disciplines, and other activities. Although it is no longer used for long-track speed skating, it is a known training base for some elite athletes outside of the skating disciplines.

Although Richmond Olympic Oval now sees broader and diverse uses, its two smaller ice rinks under the post-Olympics configuration continue to support local short-track speed skating clubs, camps, and other activities organized by Speed Skating BC.

“Our hope is we’ll be able to grow the club base and get more people interested in short track,” he said.

When asked about the possibility of the Winter Olympics eventually returning to Vancouver, Morissette highlighted the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) reforms after 2010, which introduced the potential for hosting the Games across multiple cities and regions. He also pointed to the existing facilities in the region and Whistler.

Under the layer of flooring of the Richmond Olympic Oval, the ice-making system for the permanent long track speed skating oval surface is still in place, lying dormant — something that was highlighted by the Canadian Olympic Committee when it previously considered a bid to have Vancouver, Whistler, and Sun Peaks Resort in Kamloops host the 2030 Winter Olympics.

Morissette floated a joint Calgary-Vancouver bid, or another Vancouver bid, as possibilities for the future.

“I hope it happens, and I hope it happens in my lifetime,” he said.

pacific coliseum figure skating olympics 2010

Pacific Coliseum during the 2010 Winter Olympics, which was used for both figure skating and short-track speed skating. (Olympic Broadcasting Services)

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