| The Calgary Stampeders have one less team to beat when the Canadian Football League returns for the 2006 season.
The league officially shelved the Ottawa Renegades franchise for the year after failing to find a new owner willing to operate the "third" "On-terrible" team.
Between now and next season, no one with deep pockets will go unnoticed, as league officials seek a new owner. It’s too bad. They’d be much better off trying to get every CFL squad out of Ontario and into cities where true football fans reside.
Ottawa’s penchant for losing money and football games aside, the fan base in the T-dot and Hamilton are paltry at best. Yes, there are many team supporters, but few true football fans.
Bailing out financially troubled franchises is nothing new for the CFL, especially those in Ontario. Within a four-week span in the summer of 2003, the league took control of the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats after both clubs announced they were several million dollars in debt. For now, both clubs seem in capable hands. Time will tell.
Currently, though, instead of building up the franchise in Ottawa, the league should show some vision and move a team to Quebec or Nova Scotia, where the people actually like Canadian football and would support a team.
Then, when the Schooners or Voyageurs take the place of the Renegades in the Eastern division, the league can concentrate on moving the remaining two Ontario teams out of the province. The new franchises could then thrive in an atmosphere where fans and community are a priority, if for no other fact than they would be the only game in town.
In the West, fan and community support runs rampant. Even when the "small" market teams in Regina and Winnipeg are starved for cash, they find ways to keep the team going, and eventually make a profit.
If the league can’t find a local owner or group of owners with deep community roots in Ottawa, it would do all CFL fans a service by starting the migration out of Ontario sooner, rather than later.
BARRIERS UNNECESSARY
Apparently the good folks at city hall and the Calgary police know more about Olympic sports than the rest of us.
Or, perhaps upon receiving some insider "intelligence," they mobilized against the little-known villains who regularly terrorize Olympic athletes.
And we’re not talking the usual suspects, like jock itch, runner’s nipple or athlete’s foot. These villains must be nasty people, some kind of over-intense fanatics who riot, turn over cars, break store windows and throw Molotov cocktails if their team doesn’t win those high profile events, like ski jump or luge.
Otherwise, why would there be a fenced-off area between City Hall and Olympic Plaza? Why were there fences all around the plaza and police everywhere but the rooftops, during a tribute to the Olympians who live and train in Calgary?
The paranoia of security unfortunately overshadowed a genuinely respectful gesture acknowledging the great efforts of the athletes who compete for little else than personal motivation.
Perhaps some kind of red-tape-inducing protocol from City Hall forced the organizers’ hands, but let’s consider the guests of honour. These are people who, as gold medalist Duff Gibson explains, don’t compete for recognition, money or prestige.
In fact, other than Gibson, Danielle Goyette, Jeremy Wotherspoon and a handful of others, few of us would recognize the overwhelming majority of the Olympians without a program. Gibson says anytime is a good time to talk about amateur sports and the ongoing need for athlete funding.
And he’s right. It’s just too bad the powers that be have to add barriers between those honest and friendly athletes and their true fans, just in case a fanatic shows up. |
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