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  #141  
Old Posted Feb 11, 2009, 10:22 PM
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I don't think that either of these statements need the word "perhaps" as a qualifier. As far as I am concerned, Moncton's transmission has been stuck on 'Overly-Ambitious' for years now, while Halifax has moved so slowly on things that it's a wonder they have any modern infrastructure at all. All the Maritime cities have a distinct business personality like that, like Saint John where the mantra is "Aim low, aim so low no one will even care if you succeed". But when it comes down to it, if the CFL moved into the Maritimes it should rightfully be Halifax's team to lose, but for whatever reason Moncton is obsessed with the idea and looks to steal the spotlight.
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  #142  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2009, 12:10 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kirjtc2 View Post
In a nutshell:

Moncton thinks big...perhaps too big.
Halifax thinks small...perhaps too small.
Very well said kirjtc2.

Moncton tends to be brashly optimistic, perhaps to the point of annoying other cities in the Maritimes. This may be a function of the fact that the city has had at least two near death experiences in the past (1850's-shipbuilding, 1980's-railroad) and was able to survive and prosper on both occasions. It may have given the community the sense that anything is possible.

In any event, Moncton is hotly pursuing the CFL and Halifax is doing nothing. It might yet turn out to be another case of the tortoise and the hare but unless the tortoise finally decides to leave the starting line, the hare might still yet win.
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  #143  
Old Posted Feb 12, 2009, 2:55 AM
isaidso isaidso is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kirjtc2 View Post
In a nutshell:

Moncton thinks big...perhaps too big.
Halifax thinks small...perhaps too small.
I agree with that summation.

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Originally Posted by gm_scott View Post
No offense to Moncton, but I rather see Halifax get a CFL team.
But does Halifax still have a chance. And if Moncton did get a team, there would be almost zero chance of Halifax getting one right?
Anyway, if Halifax were to get a team I would be the first one there watching.
Doesn't the argument about the larger population within an hours drive of Moncton not include Halifax? Halifax is 2.5 hours away. They could arguably each support a team. Having a team in both cities might even strengthen attendance due to an instant rivalry. There are 800,000 people in New Brunswick and just under 1 million in Nova Scotia. If Sasktachewan can do it with the same population spread out over a larger land mass, so can each of these Maritime cities.

If Halifax gets a team, you can reserve a seat next to me. I live in Toronto now, but would travel to as many games in Halifax as I could. It would be interesting to see how many fans a Maritime team would get at the Skydome. There's an awful lot of east coasters in Toronto. You see the same phenomenon at Calgary Stampeder games. A sea of Rider Green.

Last edited by isaidso; Feb 12, 2009 at 4:09 AM.
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  #144  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2009, 3:55 PM
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Consider this....

Why not share a team?- to start.

Split the games, 5 in Moncton, 5 in Halifax. City A gets 4 regular season games plus 1 exhibition game and the first playoff game, if necessary. City B gets 5 regular season games and the second playoff game, if necessary. Next, alternate City A and B every year.

Give it 5 years for the sport, the CFL and the team to grow in popularity throughout the region. Build a following. If it's strong enough, grant one of the cities an expansion team and let the other city assume the original team. If one city fails, the owners would obviously want the team in the other city. If both cities fail, well honestly, that won't happen.

There are nearly 2 million people in the Maritimes, it can be done.

Mitigate the risk

One thing is for sure: If we can get to the point where there are 2 Maritime teams in the CFL, it will be the biggest rivalry in the East Division, period. That is what makes sports fun.
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  #145  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2009, 4:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StormShadow View Post
Why not share a team?- to start.

Split the games, 5 in Moncton, 5 in Halifax. City A gets 4 regular season games plus 1 exhibition game and the first playoff game, if necessary. City B gets 5 regular season games and the second playoff game, if necessary. Next, alternate City A and B every year.

Give it 5 years for the sport, the CFL and the team to grow in popularity throughout the region. Build a following. If it's strong enough, grant one of the cities an expansion team and let the other city assume the original team. If one city fails, the owners would obviously want the team in the other city. If both cities fail, well honestly, that won't happen.

There are nearly 2 million people in the Maritimes, it can be done.

Mitigate the risk

One thing is for sure: If we can get to the point where there are 2 Maritime teams in the CFL, it will be the biggest rivalry in the East Division, period. That is what makes sports fun.
That's the best idea on this subject that I've seen proposed, thus far. Ultimately, the goal should be a team in each city. Each province is of similar size to Saskatchewan. There's no reason why the success of the Roughriders couldn't be duplicated in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Under the scenario where a team is granted to one city, the eventual granting of a team to the other city is set back a long way. If the first city to land a team cultivates a successful franchise, an endless debate would ensue regarding another team in the second city spelling disaster for the first. Saskatoon knows this all too well.

Using your approach above mitigates risk, provides options if support in one city is weak, but also tests the viability of franchises in both cities all at the same time. It's quite a clever solution. As usual, stadia will be the big stumbling block again.

Getting funding for a stadium is difficult as is. Cutting the number of games played to 4 or 5 makes it an even tougher task. This is a good idea though.
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  #146  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2009, 4:13 PM
spryscraper spryscraper is offline
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There are a couple of problems with splitting a team between Moncton and Halifax. First, both cities would need stadiums with capacities of over 25,000. If it were simple enough to build one of these, there would already be a CFL team in the Maritimes by now. Another major problem would be trying to work out some kind of system for season tickets. Most likely the franchise would have to sell half-season tickets for each location.
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  #147  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2009, 4:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spryscraper View Post
There are a couple of problems with splitting a team between Moncton and Halifax. First, both cities would need stadiums with capacities of over 25,000. If it were simple enough to build one of these, there would already be a CFL team in the Maritimes by now. Another major problem would be trying to work out some kind of system for season tickets. Most likely the franchise would have to sell half-season tickets for each location.
The Moncton stadium under construction has been designed to be expanded. I honestly don't know what Husky stadium is like? This is something where each province and city has to rally the business community and EVERY one come together in a meeting of the minds.

You would choose between a City A or B package. Incentives could be included to purchase FULL season tickets, maybe a discount or a travel incentive. Exclusive deals on Hotels, buses, and whatever. The sky's the limit here, guys.

The CFL is looking for a solution like this to minimize their risk, because frankly, they're the ones with the most at stake.
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  #148  
Old Posted Mar 4, 2009, 9:48 PM
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Originally Posted by baseball 23 View Post
I know i posted this before, but i'll post it again.

The only way a CFL team would work in any city in the Martimes is if it was Martime promoted as a Maritime team. Can’t be the Halifax ….or the Moncton… It would have to be the Maritime Marauders for example. You could set the head office for Halifax, stadium in Moncton and training camps and some other function out of Saint John. Promote it as a Maritime team and have local promotion in newspapers and radio that promote it as “our” Martime team. Calling it “Moncton’s team” or “Halifax’s team” won’t work, no local market that small would have enough to support.
I'll just re-post my thoughts, not that i think i'm right, but i think they add to the current debate.
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  #149  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2009, 9:19 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by baseball 23 View Post
The only way a CFL team would work in any city in the Martimes is if it was Martime promoted as a Maritime team. Can’t be the Halifax ….or the Moncton… It would have to be the Maritime Marauders for example.Calling it “Moncton’s team” or “Halifax’s team” won’t work, no local market that small would have enough to support.
No local market that small? Regina (194,971) and Saskatchewan (1,020,847) are that small. Moncton (126,000) and New Brunswick (734,000) is only marginally smaller and comprises a far smaller geographic area. Not very many people make the trek to Regina from Saskatoon (233,923) due to distance. Most New Brunswickers are within a 2 hour drive of Moncton. Halifax (372,858) is almost double the size of Regina while Nova Scotia (938,310) is of similar size to Saskatchewan. No local market that small would have enough to support? The Roughriders would take great exception to that claim. So would the CFL.

Want another example? Lincoln (292,219) and Nebraska (1,783,432). They've had 297 consecutive sellouts. Memorial Stadium in Lincoln currently holds 85,831 people or roughly 5% of the entire state population.

Lincoln, Nebraska

http://api.ning.com/files/Ae1n-kDHXg...ialStadium.jpg

Quote:
Originally Posted by StormShadow View Post
The Moncton stadium under construction has been designed to be expanded. I honestly don't know what Husky stadium is like? This is something where each province and city has to rally the business community and EVERY one come together in a meeting of the minds.

You would choose between a City A or B package. Incentives could be included to purchase FULL season tickets, maybe a discount or a travel incentive. Exclusive deals on Hotels, buses, and whatever. The sky's the limit here, guys.

The CFL is looking for a solution like this to minimize their risk, because frankly, they're the ones with the most at stake.
Splitting a team between Halifax and Moncton is not a big obstacle to over come. In the grand scheme of things, it's a fairly minor problem that just requires some planning. The issue is always the stadium. Like you mentioned, Moncton is half way there. They're building a stadium and they can expand it to 28,000.

It's a Halifax stadium that needs to get built. It's not like a CFL team would be the only tenant either. All that exists now is Huskies Stadium. I posted this in another thread, but as you can see, it's far from adeqate. This stadium holds more people than actually go to this school.







Last edited by isaidso; Mar 6, 2009 at 9:03 AM.
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  #150  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2009, 1:40 PM
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I think you missed my point. My point was if you go calling a team by a Moncton name or Halifax name you won't get regional support, regardless of surrounding population. Market it as a Maritime team, hold events in all 4 major cities and then you'll get your support. We have these issues in between the cities that we like to compete when really, for the CFL to work, they all need to view the team as their own, not Moncton's team but a Maritime team. Leave any city off the name.
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  #151  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2009, 3:23 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by baseball 23 View Post
I think you missed my point. My point was if you go calling a team by a Moncton name or Halifax name you won't get regional support, regardless of surrounding population. Market it as a Maritime team, hold events in all 4 major cities and then you'll get your support. We have these issues in between the cities that we like to compete when really, for the CFL to work, they all need to view the team as their own, not Moncton's team but a Maritime team. Leave any city off the name.
I know what your saying and I totally agree.
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  #152  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2009, 4:03 PM
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On the last page there were rumblings about Halifax seeking out the 2010/2011 Vanier cup... any news on this?
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  #153  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2009, 5:49 PM
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The logistics of sharing a team between MORE than 2 cities would be very difficult. The first part is to get some stadiums with a 25,000 capacity, it's hard enough to get one done, let alone two.

Also, where do the players and their families live? Where do they practice?

When you start to think about it, one of the cities or another city altogether would have to be designated as the "home base". The players and their families should all be in one city and they should be able to practice close to home. They only need to be at the Stadium(s) on gameday and arrive the day before. Also, where can they get direct flights to the other cities in the CFL?

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter where the "home base" is as long as it makes logistical sense. ie. How much time does it take to travel to either stadium?
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  #154  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2009, 7:09 PM
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The last I heard was that Laval is hosting the 2009 and 2010 Vanier Cups and that SMU is bidding on 2011
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  #155  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2009, 9:13 AM
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Laval is going to take college football to the next level. I hope SMU wins their bid for 2011, but they're going to have to make a compelling case for moving the Vanier Cup away from Quebec City. Temporarily expanding decrepit Huskies Stadium to 11,000 may not be enough. They should probably aim for 20,000 with stands right on top of the track, and looped all the way around to where the old grand stand is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by baseball 23 View Post
I think you missed my point. My point was if you go calling a team by a Moncton name or Halifax name you won't get regional support, regardless of surrounding population. Market it as a Maritime team, hold events in all 4 major cities and then you'll get your support. We have these issues in between the cities that we like to compete when really, for the CFL to work, they all need to view the team as their own, not Moncton's team but a Maritime team. Leave any city off the name.
No, I didn't miss your point at all. Although, I agree that one regional team is the way to with a regional name like 'Maritime Express', my point was that each of these 2 provinces is large enough to support their own team if they developed into football hotbeds like Nebraska and Saskatchewan.
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  #156  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2009, 9:22 AM
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Originally Posted by StormShadow View Post
The logistics of sharing a team between MORE than 2 cities would be very difficult. The first part is to get some stadiums with a 25,000 capacity, it's hard enough to get one done, let alone two.

Also, where do the players and their families live? Where do they practice?

When you start to think about it, one of the cities or another city altogether would have to be designated as the "home base". The players and their families should all be in one city and they should be able to practice close to home. They only need to be at the Stadium(s) on gameday and arrive the day before. Also, where can they get direct flights to the other cities in the CFL?

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter where the "home base" is as long as it makes logistical sense. ie. How much time does it take to travel to either stadium?
Difficult? Sounds rather straight forward to me.
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  #157  
Old Posted Apr 5, 2009, 12:40 PM
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Any new photos of the Moncton stadium?
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  #158  
Old Posted Apr 5, 2009, 2:13 PM
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Not much progress over the wintertime I'm afraid. The stadium seating on one side of the field is mostly complete but they have not started yet on the seating on the other side (next to the CEPS, the existing university athletic centre). They are going to build a physical connection between the CEPS and the new stadium as well.
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  #159  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2009, 9:42 AM
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I read that this stadium will be expandable to either 20,000 or 28,000. Which figure is accurate?
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  #160  
Old Posted Apr 6, 2009, 11:15 AM
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The stadium will have 10,000 permanent seats, with another 10,000 temporary bleachers for the World Track & Field Championships, for a total of 20,000 seats. I believe the plan is to maintain the 20,000 seats for the proposed CFL exhibition games.

The bleachers will not fill the end zone areas so I personally do not see any problem with being able to increase the capacity of the facility to 28,000 in the future. There may even be the possibility of a second tier of seating along one side.

There is certainly a lot more room for expansion here than at Huskey Stadium in Halifax.
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