Game over for big bat? Business association considers removal of iconic northside statue

More than 20 years after becoming the "Avenue of Champions," a stretch of Alberta Avenue is looking to rebrand. CTV News Edmonton's Nicole Weisberg reports.

Bye-bye, big bat?

The association representing businesses along a stretch of Edmonton’s 118 Avenue is mulling its branding and is considering moving away from a moniker it’s been sporting for more than 20 years.

That includes a large baseball bat statue that’s been a fixture on the city’s north side.

The Alberta Avenue Business Association says many of its members don’t identify with ‘Avenue of Champions,’ the slogan it’s been using since the early 2000s.

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That’s when Skyreach Centre – the 17,000-seat arena on the avenue that was later renamed Rexall Place and was first known as the Edmonton Coliseum – was the home of hockey’s Edmonton Oilers and when the city could claim some sports supremacy, including recent championships earned by its pro football and baseball teams.

The 50-foot-long metal bat that weighs about 2,500 lb. and cost $80,000 has been towering over the intersection of 97 Street and 118 Avenue since it was installed by the business association in 2003.

It and more than 200 other pieces of infrastructure related to the ‘Avenue of Champions’ branding were put in place over two years. Now, they could be removed.

Erick Estrada, the executive director of the business association, said Friday people still identify with certain branding structures – which also include metal pictograms of athletes, murals, street signs and outdoor furniture – so some of it could be retained.

“Our first step is hearing what the community wants to be called, represented by, and then look at our infrastructure and see what it is that we can keep (and) start looking at the best places to have them,” Estrada told CTV News Edmonton.

“I think recognizing our history as the ‘Avenue of Champions’ is still very important to us, but I think it’s a good time to start looking at all the changes that have happened in the area, and where it is that we’re moving forward.”

Riverhawks interested in big bat?

Coincidentally, the Edmonton Riverhawks – tenants of the ReMax Field ballpark – posted an April Fool’s joke this year on social media that the bat, which is considered one of the biggest in Canada if not North America, would be moved to its river valley locale.

Ha ha, but what if this is an opportunity to install the baseball symbol at its spiritual (and actual) city home?

The Riverhawks didn’t say ‘yes,’ but they didn’t say ‘no,’ either.

Maddie Murdoch, the team’s game day and communications director, called the April Fool’s gag “a weird coincidence.”

She said people do ask the team at times why the bat isn’t installed at the ballpark.

“They’ve been doing that for years, to be honest,” Murdoch told CTV News Edmonton. “It was a funny coincidence that that April Fool’s joke is maybe coming to fruition one day. Who knows?”

Murdoch said adding the bat to the ReMax Field landscape could be “a fun idea in the future” but that space is limited.

“If we could keep something like that around and make it more of an attraction in our neighbourhood, for sure, that’d be awesome,” she said. “It’s really just kind of one of those iconic symbols that you don’t really want to see being gotten rid of.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg