Sports in Canadian culture

[osmo]

Originally Posted by elly63

Why do you keep coming up with this white elephant thing. If you keep talking about money then you know there is no way an 80k stadium would be built in Toronto. A smaller stadium that could be temporarily expandable maybe, but even then there is really no use for a 40k stadium either so it likely ain't gonna happen unless they partner with a university or another entity (not NFL)

A new Toronto stadium is only the idea of some Toronto posters who seem to think that they have a divine right to host the final and that a hillbilly outpost like Edmonton couldn't or shouldn't. Personally, Montreal or Vancouver would be the cities I'd like to be showcased to the rest of the world.

We learned our lesson in 1976, we're not going to be outrageous like other countries, we don't need to be. Were we outrageous with Van 2010, were there any garish white elephants built, none that I can recall. We'll just bide our time and FIFA will eventually come to our way of thinking when no one else will want to host for the price FIFA would be asking.

Other factors matter simply versus a stadium..

Why not bring up the fact that Edmonton's airport is the farthest airport away from its core in Canada. FIFA, just like the Olympics, demands some type of linkage to the airport, and demands the airport to be able to handle a said amount of air traffic. Edmonton airport is a B-airport and would need expansion versus airports in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto that could host that traffic tomorrow.

Edmonton would also, have to build out LRT or heavy rail more than 30 Km out to the middle of no place. Every city finds value in this but Edmonton has rarely tried to look under that rock due to the costs. So Edmonton could host the final for sure but there are reasons that Montreal and Toronto would be ahead of it and it is tied to logistics more than anything else.

Vancouver can't host the final because of security reasons with BC Place, has the airport/logistics ready to go though.

Edmonton does not have the airport/logistics, but has the stadium.

Montreal has each thing but the stadium needs a major renovation (still would be cheaper than a $1 billion LRT in Edmonton to the airport).

Toronto has each thing but needs a stadium.

Every city has the weak points but you clearly see that Montreal is ahead even with it's more glaring flaw.

This is the reason FIFA loves America and the USA is the default "Plan B" if a WC bid flops out. USA has 20 stadiums good to host in metros with over built infrastructure and airports that could handle the influx for the tournament.

Some examples. You go to a city like Dallas and you have four venues in the Metro; two airports; plus LRT to it's major airport. You could host a whole group stage and final in Dallas and it wouldn't flinch. How about Washington DC. In the radius of how far Edmonton's airport is to downtown you have in metro DC two airports and three stadiums (Baltimore is 35 mins away by train).This is the type of capacity Canada lacks.

This is just to hammer in it isn't about just stadiums (or feelings). You have to give a plan to FIFA that you can bring in 200,000 people, house them, move them around, and ensure security; plus host some soccer games. In America places like Dallas can make a honest case for the final. They have the same logistics capacity as New York, it isn't the overwhelming difference of say London to Manchester aside from their populations.

This is no knock on Edmonton but you can't tell me a LRT and airport expansion would not cost more than Big O renovation or a temporary stadium in Toronto. That would be a $2 billion project for Edmonton which makes the other options look cheap.

[esquire]

^ Have you been to Edmonton's airport? It's pretty big... maybe not as big as Toronto but I don't see how it couldn't accommodate the what, 40,000 or so people who would make their way to town? Don't forget Calgary is only 3 hours away so many fans could opt to come through their airport as well.

I'm sure the real challenge would be getting airlines to provide enough capacity by upgauging the aircraft serving Edmonton for the event... I doubt the terminal itself would be a much of a problem, certainly not to the tune of 2 billion dollars for transportation infrastructure.

Edmonton has a lengthy track record of hosting big events with lots of out of towners... Commonwealth Games, IAAF Championships, Women's World Cup, Grey Cup, NHL events (ASG, Heritage Classic)... somehow I doubt hosting the WC final would be the big logistical challenge you make it out to be.

[mistercorporate]

Originally Posted by Oilkountry

Im hearing over 60% Mexican supporters. Also the world is laughing at Canadian soccer supporters because our "soccer song battle cry thing" is literally "who ha canada who ha canada". Twitter is having a hay day with this. And to make things worse Snapchat made a global story about this game. Honestly this whole "OVER HERE!! OVER HERE!! LOOK AT US EUROPE!!" Thing that Canadian soccer fans are doing is sort of pathetic

I saw the game, the crowd was overwhelmingly wearing red, id say your sources are full of BS.

[FrankieFlowerpot]

Save yourself a few IQ points and don't bother reading his posts.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Have you been to Edmonton's airport? It's pretty big... maybe not as big as Toronto but I don't see how it couldn't accommodate the what, 40,000 or so people who would make their way to town? Don't forget Calgary is only 3 hours away so many fans could opt to come through their airport as well.

I'm sure the real challenge would be getting airlines to provide enough capacity by upgauging the aircraft serving Edmonton for the event... I doubt the terminal itself would be a much of a problem, certainly not to the tune of 2 billion dollars for transportation infrastructure.

Edmonton has a lengthy track record of hosting big events with lots of out of towners... Commonwealth Games, IAAF Championships, Women's World Cup, Grey Cup, NHL events (ASG, Heritage Classic)... somehow I doubt hosting the WC final would be the big logistical challenge you make it out to be.

Yes I am familiar with Edmonton's airport. It is big, and nice, but just very far away. By Canadian standards it is fine but to put it in comparison it is around the same size and handles the same traffic as Dallas's regional airport Lovefield. Edmonton's airport is essentially a regional airport as well. I don't care for the bogus branding purposes of calling it a "International Airport", my hometown Regina does the same thing and it is a joke. A real international airport gives you the ability to get to every global regions major hub and not just sun destinations in Mexico. Extra planes come in also, do they have space to land, fuel up, and park? Do you need more gates to accommodate the planes? All the while daily service that is standard still has to run smoothly.

Edmonton is a big event city but there is a level of scope where extra capacity is needed. After seeing the amount of resources put towards the NBA All-star game and Pan-Am games here I realized they are not all equal.

So much more goes into these things then just the sport event day(s). Even things like hotel rooms. I know for instance, that Regina is in a crunch currently, as it has a under supply of rooms that just fill up to quickly for events. How would a city handle that if it was awarded the WC final? You build temporary hotels? These are all things that FIFA takes into account. So it simply just isn't bias when the biggest city gets to host these things it just comes down to common sense. A place like New York probably has enough hotel rooms that could house all of Edmonton (they get 15 million overnight visitors a year; Toronto, 12 million; Edmonton 4 million). That size of scope in scale is hard to compete with and just comes from decades more of being a large metro.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by esquire

Edmonton has a lengthy track record of hosting big events with lots of out of towners... Commonwealth Games, IAAF Championships, Women's World Cup, Grey Cup, NHL events (ASG, Heritage Classic)... somehow I doubt hosting the WC final would be the big logistical challenge you make it out to be.

That is the obvious point that Calvin's lengthy post missed.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot

Save yourself a few IQ points and don't bother reading his posts.

mistercorporate or Oilkountry? In this case mistercorporate is correct. Crowd started out ok and the first Mexican goal really deflated it as what usually happens everywhere.

It's a bit like what happened with Brazil and Germany at the Brazil WC. Expectations were so positive and there was a big letdown. Thankfully unlike Brazil we didn't quit, but we weren't very good in that game either.

It's all a mind game now, we go into the most difficult game of the qualifying in Azteca at altitude, searing heat, smog and fans right on top of you, most countries accept it as a guaranteed loss. How do you get your mind around that?

When I used to play sports as a kid (I consider 20's being a kid ), for road games we had a saying "Gotta play it, might as well win it" I think we got that from Ken Dryden's The Game" That's the attitude the team has to have, a be angry, don't care attitude because they now have a very high mountain to climb.

[elly63]

I was very angry and let down last night. It was as someone said the bizzaro world of soccer for me. The defensive system that Floro instituted over the past two years and that had been very successful against other top teams failed.

Mexico who are usually very underwhelming when playing away from Azteca (ask the Americans at Columbus) looked like Supermen.

The only thing that calmed me down was watching the women's curling that came on after. Curling is so Zen, that's why it sucks people into it, just like a Succubus. They showed a minute of the Danish team planning their next few shots, I didn't know I could understand Danish All that and purty grrls too, what is not to like?

[Oilkountry]

yeah not sure whats wrong with YEG either than it's stupid location,2 expansions later it's on par with any airport in this country, one thing i would say is that instead of investing yet another 1.1 Billion into it they should have just built another closer to the city

[SaskScraper]

^^ I don't get what problems would be with the Edmonton International airport, its less than 15 minutes drive from Anthony Henday Freeway, and probably faster to Commonwealth stadium than Pearson is to downtown TO or Dorval is to Olympic stadium.. EIA handles 8 million passengers/ year, thats 150,000 per week, probably twice that during holiday season.. It's quite sufficient for handling any spectator/press transportation needs. Manaus, Brazil in the remote Amazon basin, didn't have trouble holding World Cup games, Edmonton with Calgary only a couple hours away would be easy to handle any overflow hotel/ transportation needs.

I have a feeling that Canadian Soccer Association would look more favouring of city like Edmonton with its success in other sporting events its held throughout the years as listed earlier, as in comparison to mafia built and now falling part facilities in Montreal ..and Ontario's newest millionaires of the money-stuffing-pockets of execs of Toronto PanAm Games organizing committee..

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...re-than-100000

As long as Organizing Committee is like Winter Olympic games in Vancouver & Calgary, or both PanAm games success in Winnipeg is used a blue print for success, World Cup Final in Edmonton would be a shoe-in.

[Nicko999]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

^^ I don't get what problems would be with the Edmonton International airport, its less than 15 minutes drive from Anthony Henday Freeway, and probably faster to Commonwealth stadium than Pearson is to downtown TO or Dorval is to Olympic stadium.. EIA handles 8 million passengers/ year, thats 150,000 per week, probably twice that during holiday season.. It's quite sufficient for handling any spectator/press transportation needs. Manaus, Brazil in the remote Amazon basin, didn't have trouble holding World Cup games, Edmonton with Calgary only a couple hours away would be easy to handle any overflow hotel/ transportation needs.

I have a feeling that Canadian Soccer Association would look more favouring of city like Edmonton with its success in other sporting events its held throughout the years as listed earlier, as in comparison to mafia built and now falling part facilities in Montreal ..and Ontario's newest millionaires of the money-stuffing-pockets of execs of Toronto PanAm Games organizing committee..

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...re-than-100000

As long as Organizing Committee is like Winter Olympic games in Vancouver & Calgary, or both PanAm games success in Winnipeg is used a blue print for success, World Cup Final in Edmonton would be a shoe-in.

Some of you are trying too hard. It's either Montreal or Toronto for the WC final

Originally Posted by elly63

mistercorporate or Oilkountry? In this case mistercorporate is correct. Crowd started out ok and the first Mexican goal really deflated it as what usually happens everywhere.

It's a bit like what happened with Brazil and Germany at the Brazil WC. Expectations were so positive and there was a big letdown. Thankfully unlike Brazil we didn't quit, but we weren't very good in that game either.

It's all a mind game now, we go into the most difficult game of the qualifying in Azteca at altitude, searing heat, smog and fans right on top of you, most countries accept it as a guaranteed loss. How do you get your mind around that?

When I used to play sports as a kid (I consider 20's being a kid ), for road games we had a saying "Gotta play it, might as well win it" I think we got that from Ken Dryden's The Game" That's the attitude the team has to have, a be angry, don't care attitude because they now have a very high mountain to climb.

The Impact tied the best North American soccer team, Club America 1-1 at Azteca 11 months ago. Who knows? But Cyle Larin needs to finish a couple of the chances.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Nicko999

Some of you are trying too hard. It's either Montreal or Toronto for the WC final

Toronto wasn't in the WWC and nobody missed having them host.

To tell the truth, aside from the PanAMs, I wonder if Edmonton hasn't staged more big international sporting events.

I don't have a horse in this race but let's not put the big city ignorance into play, Edmonton or Vancouver could both host the final. There's nothing special about Toronto or Montreal to a world audience.

If there was a choice in the USA who would you pick. New York, LA or DC could all lay a claim, same as Canada nothing really to distinguish one city over the other each has their own identity.

As far as Edmonton is concerned I would think the IAAF would be a bigger event logistically than one WC group.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Nicko999

But Cyle Larin needs to finish a couple of the chances.

You could say that about a few people. Where's Ali Gerba when you need him? Some so called "fans" didn't want him in the lineup because he looked out of shape but when he had the chance he finished.

[TorontoDrew]

[QUOTE=elly63;7384896] There's nothing special about Toronto or Montreal to a world audience.
QUOTE]

Except that the world knows of Toronto and Montreal. They both also are in the most populated time zone in North America. The fact they are both larger markets doesn't hurt as well.

[elly63]

They had an Olympics in Vancouver, I think the world knew about that.

[TownGuy]

Have you seen the list of Winter Olympic hosts? Cobourg might as well host one of those.

[flipv]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

Have you seen the list of Winter Olympic hosts? Cobourg might as well host one of those.

Vancouver, as famous as Lake Placid, Lillehammer, Grenoble or Sochi.

[Acajack]

Looking at the world cup finals over the years, they've all generally been held in the largest or second largest cities of the host country.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Looking at the world cup finals over the years, they've all generally been held in the largest or second largest cities of the host country.

Because generally the largest city also has the largest suitable stadium, or marginally smaller but most well-equipped.

[Airboy]

Add the Universiad and the World Masters Games to the Edmonton Column. Edmonton did not bid for the WMG, the original host city in Europe fell through financially, the WMG council knew of Edmonton hosting history and aproached the city to take this on. It was a short time to put it together but Edmonton had most of the required facilities and pulled it off. On the international Sports stage Edmonton does have a good rep as a host city. Canada proved with the women's WC that we could pull it off even with the logistical issues. So Edmonton could host a finals for the Men's WC just as much as another city would. International media would however dictate the exact location of the finals.