Percival Molson Memorial Stadium

About Percival Molson Memorial Stadium

Percival Molson Memorial Stadium clings to the southern slopes of Mount Royal, tucked into the McGill University campus in downtown Montreal. With about 20,025 seats, it is intimate by CFL standards, and at over 110 years old, it is the oldest active stadium in the league. The setting is unlike anything else in Canadian football: you watch the game with a mountain rising behind one end zone and the city skyline visible from the other.

The Montreal Alouettes have called this place home since 1998, returning after a three-decade detour through the Autostade and Olympic Stadium. The McGill Redbirds play their U Sports football here too, keeping the stadium’s university roots alive. On game days, the surrounding campus streets fill with tailgaters and fans heading uphill from downtown.

The Alouettes’ relationship with this stadium has always had a scrappy charm. In 1997, the team was forced out of Olympic Stadium for a playoff game by a scheduled U2 concert, so they played at Molson Stadium to a raucous sellout. That game helped convince the franchise to make the permanent move back a year later, and it has been packed on autumn Sundays ever since.

Construction & Design

The stadium owes its shape to the land. When McGill architect Percy Erskine Nobbs laid it out, he built into a natural depression in Macdonald Park on the lower slopes of Mount Royal, letting the hillside form the seating bowl. The result is compact and steep-sided, fans stacked close over the field. Construction began in July 1914, and the first game followed on October 22, 1915, under the name McGill Graduates’ Stadium. The original cost came to roughly C$100,000, about $1.7 million in today’s money. The Percival Molson name arrived in 1919, two years after the captain’s death in the war left the university a $75,000 bequest.

The big modern change came in 2009 and 2010: a $29.4 million renovation that added a second tier on the south side, 19 luxury suites, and about 3,800 seats. Quebec put in $19.3 million, the City of Montreal $4 million, and then-owner Robert Wetenhall $6 million. Capacity has moved with the decades since: the expansion pushed it to a peak of 25,012, but later reconfigurations pulled it back toward 20,000, keeping Molson comfortably the smallest ground in the CFL. The surface has its own claim to fame. When Molson Stadium hosted field hockey at the 1976 Summer Olympics, it became the first Olympic venue to stage a competition on artificial turf. Grass gave way to AstroTurf that year, then to FieldTurf in the 2000s, the current FieldTurf Revolution generation. No roof, and never has been. This is Montreal, so the snow just gets shoveled.

Getting to Percival Molson Memorial Stadium

Public Transit

The best option for Alouettes games is the free STM Navette des Alouettes shuttle from Place-des-Arts metro station (UQAM exit). It runs starting 2 hours before kickoff on weekends, 1 hour 45 minutes on weekdays. You need a valid game ticket to board.

Return shuttles depart from the corner of Du Parc and Des Pins starting in the third quarter.

Driving + Parking

GPS address: 475 Avenue des Pins Ouest, Montreal, QC H2W 1S4.

Parking is tight. The Molson Stadium/MNI lot has about 182 spaces at $10 (credit/debit only), accessed via the lane between The Neuro and Douglas Hall. Private garages nearby: 300 Léo Pariseau ($30, 2-minute walk) and 3524 Avenue du Parc (~$20, 5-minute walk). Street parking fills immediately on game days.

Rideshare

Uber drops off at 475 Avenue des Pins Ouest. From most downtown Montreal hotels, the ride is under 2 km, about $10-15 CAD. From YUL airport, expect $35-50 CAD. The free Alouettes shuttle makes rideshare largely unnecessary on game days.

From the Airport

History of Percival Molson Memorial Stadium

The stadium’s story begins with the man it honors. Percival Molson was a McGill alumnus, elite multi-sport athlete, and great-great-grandson of brewer John Molson. At 16, he won the Stanley Cup with the 1897 Montreal Victorias. He competed at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, McGill’s first Olympian. He chaired the university’s Stadium Committee that approved construction, then enlisted in World War I with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. He earned the Military Cross for valor and was killed by a German howitzer at Avion near Vimy Ridge on July 5, 1917. His will left $75,000 to McGill.

Key moments in the stadium’s history:

• October 22, 1915: Inaugurated as “McGill Graduates’ Stadium” with an intercollegiate track meet and football game.
• October 25, 1919: Renamed Percival Molson Memorial Stadium by the McGill Board of Governors.
• November 28, 1931 (19th Grey Cup): The first Grey Cup played outside Ontario. The Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers defeat Regina 22-0. Also the first Grey Cup to allow forward passes.
• July 1976 (Montreal Olympics): Hosts the Olympic field hockey tournament, becoming the first Olympic venue in history to stage a competition on artificial turf, a shift that permanently changed the sport.
• 1998: Montreal Alouettes return as primary CFL tenant, beginning the stadium’s modern era.
• 2010: The $29.4 million renovation completes. A second tier is added, and capacity peaks at 25,012.

The modern Alouettes era arrived with a roar. After the franchise returned to Molson Stadium in 1998, the team caught fire at the box office: from August 12, 1999 through 2009, every Alouettes home game here sold out, a streak of more than a decade that turned a century-old college field into one of the hottest tickets in Canadian sport. The compact bowl, barely 20,000 seats and steep on every side, made the noise feel far larger than the crowd. Playoff nights under the lights, with the illuminated cross on Mount Royal watching over the north end, became a fixture of the Canadian football calendar. The stadium’s small size, once seen as a limitation, had turned into its single greatest asset.

Through all of it, the McGill Redbirds have kept playing their U Sports games on the same field, a reminder that this was a university stadium first and remains one. Few venues in the country host a pro league and varsity football on the same grass in the same autumn.

The stadium has endured Montreal’s brutal winters for over a century. Snow piles on the seats from November through April, the slopes of Mount Royal rise just behind the scoreboard, and when fall comes around again, the Alouettes faithful fill these old stands once more. Few venues in North American sports can match that continuity, or that setting. From the upper rows, you can see the cross atop Mount Royal glowing against the night sky while a CFL game unfolds below.

Sources & Further Reading

• McGill Athletics: mcgillathletics.ca. Stadium owner: facilities, history, and university football.
• Montreal Alouettes: montrealalouettes.com. Primary CFL tenant: game-day and ticket information.
• Canadian Football League: cfl.ca. Grey Cup history and records.
• Percival Molson Memorial Stadium on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org. Construction, capacity history, and the 1976 Olympics.