Along with fan support, Edmonton traditionally has been much more equipped to hold the big soccer games as compared to Toronto it seems. Keep it up Edmonton!:tup:

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4360/...084b130f_b.jpg

Ok so.. with the Rider win over the Bombers in Labour day Classic in Regina yesterday & half way through the season, there seems to be a really huge disparity between the West and the Eastern divisions.

Can anything be done for rest of the season to make it a little less embarrassing for the Eastern teams & help increase the sparse attendance in the East, could some trades help or raising the player salary ceiling to entice more imports into the East?

I think you're getting a little off topic so I'll attempt to reel it back in.

As a fan of the CMNT for the past 40 some years where I have had a problem was with Toronto being gifted NT games and them not being spread out (like the women) to build a cross country base.

And the only reason for that lately was because only Toronto and Montreal have turf fields. But since BC Place has held WCQ on artificial turf the argument to play in Toronto exclusively really doesn't hold water anymore.

Also, with the largest potential audience to draw from (by far) I am wondering where the drop off is from a good TFC average crowd this year (27k) to 21k with an opponent whose fans normally show up in droves in Toronto. Who didn't show up might be a good question to ask and place to start?

As for CFL small crowds in the east I would hardly call Ottawa and Hamilton having attendance either sold out or near capacity, sparse. Montreal is at the break even point but should be doing better and Toronto, who knows? I see good diversity in Toronto crowds which is a good sign, just not enough of them.

I don't know if heavy targeting to the millennials there is a good strategy or not. I'm hearing they are having some success with affordable family ticket pricing.

The men won't play on turf. Simple. These exhibition friendly games are a money exchange as much as practice game. You won't get the Mexico and USA of your soccer federation, nor will you get the Brazil or England teams to ever come here and play in turf. For CMNT it isn't worth the cost to blow $200k to lay down some sod to go play in Vancouver apparently so they just stay in Toronto and Montreal.

The women should of held their ground to not play on the turf surface but they caved. CSA didn't want sod as they were cheap, it all came down to cost and nothing else. Women should of held firm and told the CSA to stick it. The courts said there words but the men simply would not play on turf under no circumstances for such a high level of soccer competition.

The men , won't budge on the turf issue. Lots of top international players who are based in the bigger leagues in Europe with insurance fine print which blocks them from playing on artificial surfaces.

I dont view this as some Toronto focused thing - not many options for grass soccer facilities that would have the amenities to host international teams in Canada.

It's funny that Vancouver is the only major city in the country that you could grow grass year round.

Toronto has the premiere soccer specific facility in the country.
Toronto hosts the majority of friendlies.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Friendlies, like competitive matches, are moved around the country when the desire is there from CSA. CMNT did play Mexico at BC Place not too long ago, and their last few friendlies have alternated host cities between Toronto and elsewhere. It's not as if matches are exclusively played in Toronto by any means.

What was the attendance at that BC Place match? I'm guessing way more than 21600. And how was it that the Mexico men were able to play on indoor turf without perishing?

FIFA allows for artificial turf. We put in the only bid for the WWC (another competitor dropped out) and everyone knew long in advance that we would use artificial turf. The USA team were very disingenuous about their protest and used it to make monetary gains. They knew the lay of the land long before they began their shenanigans.

Why would we replace all those surfaces and replace them back again for the small amount of money to be gained from a WWC, that is ludicrous.

They can afford to do it for the men because of the vast amounts of money involved.

You never seem to hear much squawking about AT when a team wins and conversely we didn't hear any at all about the Vancouver WCQ games. There might have been one very small comment IIRC. Most of the players prefer to play in Toronto because it is turf and many of the players are from there and Toronto is a travel hub. Otherwise, concerning the CMNT, there hasn't been much bitching.

54,798 was the official attendance. It was a World Cup Qualifying match (not a friendly) against one of the most popular teams in the Western Hemisphere, and Vancouver's a great town for footy.

See:
For CSA & Mexico the choice was either play at near freezing temperatures elsewhere in Canada or play indoors on a surface you may or may not like. IIRC CONCACAF/FIFA is willing to let Canada play on artificial surfaces in the event that outdoor temperatures are low (see: winter). I believe it's a judgment call by CSA. This is why Canada strictly schedules home Friendly matches for June/July & September.

The CMNT has rarely ever played in the month of March in Canada, and when the CWNT had an Olympic qualifying tournament set for January 2012 those matches were played at BC Place, as well. The only other CWNT friendly matches played out of summer months were in March 2006, played in Victoria and Vancouver.

Past non-Summer CWNT Friendlies:
February 2017 - BC Place
October 2014 - BC Place
October 2014 - Commonwealth
November 2013 - BC Place
November 2013 - Commonwealth

Lately the CWNT have been playing more outside of the West Coast, but their fall/winter/spring matches are almost exclusively in Vancouver. The CMNT typically follows this as well.

Hamilton and Ottawa effectively play at capacity every game. Even if Montreal were playing at capacity they would still be below the figures the Western teams put up (save for BC). Toronto is....Toronto.

There's no "FIFA is willing"; qualifiers can be played on artificial turf, anytime, anywhere, end of story. We had a very interesting game against CR at Saprissa on AT many years ago, although Saprissa has a turf surface now, I'm pretty sure.

Years ago I had posted articles from FIFA encouraging the use and betterment of artificial turf to grow the game in places where maintaining turf surfaces would be cost prohibitive and difficult.

Edmonton at Calgary
Attendance 33,731
Capacity 95%

And I heard that the tailgating in the parking lot was spectacular - a new stadium surrounded by parkades will kill tailgating. What to do, what to do.

I always heard the tailgating in Calgary was the best in the league but unless you know something about a new stadium that I don't, there won't be any decision to make for a while.

I wish you knew something about a new stadium that I don't :)

1. Demolish Burns Stadium 2. Build McMahon Stadium replacement on Burns Stadium footprint and adjacent parking area. 3. Demolish McMahon Stadium.

But it won't happen as long as U of C owns the property.

Tor at Ham
Attendance: 23,926 (until the rain came)
98% Capacity

Crowd (or what was left) eventually went home happy (and wet)

Aug 28-Sept 4, 2017
TORONTO/BOSTON..........AUG 28-AUG 30...MLB.......ROGERS...........TORONTO.......35,999 (107,997 Total)
CALGARY/EDMONTON.........SEPT 4.............CFL........MCMAHON........CALGARY........33,731
SASKATCHEWAN/WINNIPEG...SEPT 3..........CFL........MOSAIC............REGINA..........33,350
HAMILTON/TORONTO.......SEPT 4...............CFL........TIM HORTONS...HAMILTON.......23,926
CANADA/JAMAICA...........SEPT 2................FRND......BMO................TORONTO........21,724

MONTREAL/CHICAGO......SEPT 2................MLS........SAPUTO...........MONTREAL.......19,619
MONTREAL/OTTAWA.......AUG 31................CFL........MOLSON..........MONTREAL.......18,325
TORONTO/WHITEHAVEN..SEPT 2................RFL........LAMPORT..........TORONTO.........6,134
OTTAWA/SAINT LOUIS....SEPT 3................USL........TD PLACE...........OTTAWA..........4,059

Notes:

• Jays continue steady attendance bleed
• CFL sellout in Regina with near sellouts in Hamilton & Calgary; Montreal sets season-low on consecutive weeks
• Second-highest attendance for a CMNT match in Toronto and second-highest for an international friendly in Canada since a 1994 pre-FIFA World Cup friendly with Brazil
• Ottawa Fury continue Fall decline tradition

Continuing to fall for the obvious BS attendance figures of Ti-Cats games. :haha:

Tickets distributed =/= attendance.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DI66wCrXcAE2wQ5.jpg

https://twitter.com/MikeCupido/statu...65911647203328

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/spo...ticle36163189/

But sure, believe that there were only 374 empty seats... and that the Ti-Cats aren't using tickets distributed to hide their lower-than-advertised attendance for the last couple seasons.

This guy has done more to market the league in two months than his predecessor did during his entire tenure. Seriously thinking this guy could become more popular than Cohon. The CFL, the only league where the commissioner gets cheered.

Here, Commish Ambrosie delivers pizza to the media hacks during the Hamilton rain delay.

https://i.imgur.com/tVqrZGD.jpg

Per usual, Berkie the CFL troll is at it again. The Argos are using scanned tickets as their attendance so their attendance reflects how many people are there. Neither you nor I know how Hamilton reflects their attendance.

Berkie the anti CFL/Canada troll wants us to believe by his using the term distributed tickets that they are comps and giveaways. Except he doesn't clue into the fact that the lesser capacity doesn't allow them to do that like in the past at IW where they had less scarcity and a lot more seats to fill. With ticket scarcity they don't have to give comps and giveaways like in the past and they certainly won't make much money at that capacity by doing so.

Do I think those were tickets sold and not scanned attendance, of course. People didn't want to get rained on and stayed away but are you really trying to make us believe they've had attendance problems the last few seasons instead of a few blips on the radar the last few games of a winless season, c'mon Berkie you can troll better than that.