Steve Thompson is a CFL featured columnist on Bleacher Report.com. On the site, he focuses mainly on CFL expansion.
If there is one thing the CFL doesn’t need, it’s the pathetic and unnecessary standoff between Hamilton Tiger-Cats owner, Bob Young and the Hamilton City Council about the location of a new stadium.
When one starts to probe this case, two things bubble to the surface. First: Bob Young has few cards to play. Second: There is the inconsistent double standard of the CFL.
First Young. He appeared on the TSN half time show on Friday night during the Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Winnipeg Blue Bombers game to explain his position. When asked about his reasons for withdrawing from stadium talks with the city and his opposition to their choice of location for a new stadium, he was clear and direct. When asked about where he would move the Tiger Cats, if he had to, his language became bureaucratic.
The truth is that unless he selects an American city, Young has nowhere to move the Tiger-Cats.
In fact, the most realistic thing for Young to do, if he really is serious about moving the team, would be to shift it to Baltimore. The CFL still has fans there. They probably could still make a go of it, despite the NFL competition from the Ravens.
In Canada, he’s got nowhere to move the team except Moncton.
Two bizarre places were named: Burlington and Milton. But, how is battling QEW-403 traffic to Burlington any better than downtown, west harbour Hamilton? What is in small town Milton to support a CFL team? Besides, neither place has anything even close to a CFL-size stadium.
Population-wise, the most realistic places to move the Tiger-Cats are Quebec City, London, or Kitchener. But, though university football is popular in all three cities, there is nothing close to a CFL size stadium in any of them. If there really was a serious effort to have CFL football, all three cities, which are big enough to support CFL franchises right now, would already have teams. With proper stadiums and investors, all three cities could apply for expansion franchises. Why do they need an established team from Hamilton? Neither an investor, nor any attempt to build a CFL size stadium, has ever surfaced.
There are only two places in Canada with possible CFL stadiums for Young to move his team. Put a team in the vacant Montreal Olympic stadium to compete against the Alouettes, or expand the newly opened Moncton stadium, the site of the upcoming Touchdown Atlantic game featuring the Edmonton Eskimos and Toronto Argonauts, in September.
So, Young’s only real hope is Moncton. By rights, Moncton shouldn’t even be in the picture. It is only the 29th largest city in Canada. But, small Moncton has elbowed its way to the head of the line for a CFL franchise, ahead of at least ten other larger, logical places for a new team. Moncton is the most ambitious city in the Maritimes, anxious to show that it is THE Maritime city, ahead of other eastern cities, like Halifax. Once that is established, Moncton will probably want to show that it is the up and coming city in all of Canada. First selling out the Touchdown Atlantic game quickly, and then landing a permanent CFL franchise, would be a great status booster in that direction for the city. And, as small Saskatchewan proved, quality of fan can make up in a big way for lack of population. Unless Moncton comes through, Young is backed into a corner with time running out.
This situation is the complete opposite of the NFL.
When franchises like Oakland, Houston, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Baltimore, and St. Louis wanted to move, they had places already lined up, ready to give favourable deals to lure a team.
As for the CFL, there is a double standard that has emerged.
If you go to the CFL’s website, or Internet CFL forums, or even in this column, probably the hottest topic that gets the most questions and responses is expansion. People want to see the underdog league grow across Canada with more teams to make the league more interesting. But, the league only takes baby steps.
Visionary CFL commissioners like Tom Wright and Larry Smith had their plans blow up in their faces. So, the league has reverted to taking baby steps.
Right now, the league is congratulating itself on the Grey Cup selling out in record time in Edmonton, on the expansion of Montreal’s stadium, on Touchdown Atlantic and finally getting Ottawa back in the league in 2013.
Now the irony.
It is the city’s west harbour location of a 25,000 seat stadium that is the baby step. It is Bob Young’s choice of an east mountain location, fully backed by Commissioner Mark Cohon and the CFL that is the visionary choice. That stadium is alleged to hold more fans, have easier access, and be expandable for Grey Cups.
Commissioner Cohon has gone as far as to write the city a letter which threatens to vacate Hamilton forever if Young’s choice is not accepted. Why the hard line stance against Hamilton?
The CFL claims that any new expansion team must play in a stadium of 25,000 seats. But Montreal played in a stadium seating 20,000 for a decade and a half. It is playing the Touchdown Atlantic game in a stadium that only seats 20,000, of which half of the seats are temporary. It accepted a new Ottawa stadium that only seats 24,000 in a much larger city than Hamilton. Why is a 20,000 seat stadium acceptable in Moncton, a 24,000 seat stadium acceptable in Ottawa, but a 25,000 seat stadium not acceptable in Hamilton?
Even if Young does move the team to Moncton, he would have to convert half the seats and then expand the stadium by 5,000 to reach 25,000 – the same size as the west harbour stadium he finds so unacceptable.
So what will happen?
Unless Moncton comes through, or some new miracle offer makes a grand appearance, the issue will continue like an unnecessary soap opera until one side caves in, just before the Tiger Cats lease with Ivor Wynne Stadium expires in 2011.
Then the usual speeches will come from one side, congratulating the other for making concessions that the other found acceptable so that people’s faces are saved.
No one will mention that the concessions could have been made months earlier. The project could have started and completed by the time they finished talking.
Until then the Tiger-Cats will remain in limbo, a boring non-issue that most fans should best ignore.
For more from Steve Thompson, visit his Bleacher Report.com profile page at http://bleacherreport.com/users/75533-steve-thompson.
