You have to admire their passion, those folks at Raise the Hammer. They brought out yet another plea for the city to consider the West Harbour. As it has been said before, the Tiger-Cats will not play there, neither will any other team, unless Brian Timmis is torn down with Ivor Wynne. But these pleas will continue until the city and HostCo finally agree upon Ivor Wynne Stadium as the site. But until then, the West Harbour site remains the city's choice until full ratification and our friends over at RTH will continue their assault on our sanity.
And a lot of this wouldn't have happened if council did identify and fully investigate all the possible sites the first time around. The most maddening thing about it is the fact that it's been one year ago next month when the Tiger-Cats told the city that the West Harbour site won't work for them. Since then, only two other sites were studied, but only in the eleventh hour. And of those two other sites, one was the most expensive and the other was suspect, due to allegations that the study's numbers were slightly exaggerated. Those allegations are indeed plausible too.
The fact is we ended up back at Ivor Wynne Stadium, because city council ran a gambit believing that Bob Young would sell the team before he'd let the team play at a West Harbour stadium. The city underestimated Bob Young's determination to get the best deal for the Tiger-Cats. And because of all the eleventh hour activities, we found ourselves in a rush to come up with a site that both parties could agree on and now we need to figure out what gets sacrificed.
What do I mean by "sacrificed," you ask? The biggest reason why the Tiger-Cats wanted a new stadium in a new location is to get some more parking for people going to the stadium and to end the parking roulette game. So either Brian Timmis stadium or Scott Park could end up sacrificed for a parkcade to create some more parking for people going to the games. Brian Timmis is most likely, because the new stadium is supposed to be a soccer field and they will want to put some more space in between the sidelines, thereby reducing injuries. There are many options to consider and lots of other planning to do.
So here we are, back to where we started, now pondering what we can do to make the stadium better and the team sustainable. And yes, not everyone is happy about it, but isn't that the beauty of democracy?
SHOUT OUT! - to blogger "Mystoneycreek" E-mail me sometime, will ya?
"The biggest reason why the Tiger-Cats wanted a new stadium in a new location is to get some more parking for people going to the stadium and to end the parking roulette game."
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. Yes, 'some more parking for people going to the stadium', but within the context of an improved revenue stream. That is, revenue from parking.
And as I've said previously, you know there's something wrong with your business model when you so badly need ancillary monies to keep you afloat. My pet analogy is a movie theatre chain...such as Cineplex...charging for parking at their SilverCity facilities in order to make their film presentation business viable. Wouldn't that be crazy?
Let's be clear: I feel no animosity towards Bob Young and the Ti-Cats, I believe that Hamilton is a better community with them than without them, but it's not the community's responsibility in a capitalist marketplace to be suckered into contributing to their coffers in such a way. (Which is why I was against the East Mountain site. Oh, and the fact that I am philosophically against suburban stadiums.)