John Labatt Centre 3.18

Budweiser Gardens is a sports-entertainment centre, in London, Ontario, Canada – the largest such centre in southwestern Ontario. Until 2012, it was known as the John Labatt Centre, usually referred to as the "JLC".The John Labatt Centre, which opened on October 11, 2002, was named after John Labatt, founder of the Labatt brewery in London. Labatt still has a large brewery in London to the present day, although its head office was moved to Toronto in the early 1990s. The John Labatt Centre's name was changed to Budweiser Gardens in Fall 2012, as approved by London City Council on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 with a vote of 12-3.The centre was built, in part, to be the new downtown home of London's Ontario Hockey League team, the London Knights, replacing the 40-year-old London Ice House in the south end of the city, near Highway 401. Since 2011, it is home to London's National Basketball League of Canada team, the London Lightning.Ownership and managementBudweiser Gardens is leased from the City of London by the London Civic Centre Corporation, an example of a public-private partnership. The London Civic Centre Corporation is owned in turn by EllisDon and Global Spectrum, the Philadelphia-based subsidiary of Comcast the American cable company. Global Spectrum also manages the Budweiser Gardens and operates more than 100 other arenas, stadiums and convention centres. Because of this, the Philadelphia Flyers, a corporate cousin of Global Spectrum, customarily have played a preseason game at Budweiser Gardens each year.