Raise the Hammer

Maybe its time for Hamilton to stand up for itself. The Bob Young owned Ticats have decided to turn their backs on us, so its time to return the favour.

So far, the city has spent some $10 million on acquiring land for a stadium to replace Ivor Wynne. After exhaustive studies, many votes, and countless hours used up by city staff all to play this little shell game of having the stadium moved to Aldershot (which was Bob Young's preference all along)its time for the city to create its own legacy tenant. Seeing as the Ticats have decided to use decades old thinking to come up with a plan that most experts would agree only creates white elephant stadiums, we need to ensure that these tax dollars will provide for the betterment of the community and not just a small number of rich cronies looking to make themselves richer off the backs of the canadian taxpayer. There's a very good reason that most other cities are building their new sports complexes in their city centres. In fact FIFA's own document titled "Football Stadiums: Technical Recommendations and Requirements" states that...

"In an ideal world, the ultimate location would probably be a large city-centre site with
good access to public transport, major roads and motorways and parking that can be
used by others when games are not being played. This reduces the possibility that large
parking areas will be used for as little as 100 to 200 hours per year. A stadium with
ambitions to host international events is more attractive to event holders if it is within
comfortable reach of hotels and active commercial environments and at least one
international airport."

If there is $70 million of senior level funding available, I suggest we take $2 million of the future fund to secure a USL-1 soccer franchise and build a 12-15,000 seat stadium at the west harbour designed for future expansion. This community owned franchise could be called The Hamilton Football Club. And seeing as soccer has much more growth potential long-term, especially with our diverse population, I see soccer as being the proper tenant for our new stadium. That is what the pan am stadium will be used for anyways.

Maybe once Bob Young sells the team or makes ammends, the Ticats can be offered a nice part in the new Hamilton stadium. Part of that would require firing Scott Mitchell. As a huge Ticat fan, I am completely disgusted at the way they have crapped on our city's history with that club. It is the oldest sports club in North America, formed when our great country was only 2 years old, and they have the audacity to even suggest moving the team outside the city that it has called home for 141 years?!? Until they are gone, I will no longer consider them our club. And I guess it gives new meaning to the CFL's slogan " Its Our Game!" We're all supposed to be caretakers of that club, but if Bob Young wants to be the only caretaker, he's welcome to it.