Tag Archives: Canad Inns Stadium

Anyone Really Surprised by the Cost of a New Football Stadium.

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. — So David Asper and his real estate development firm, Creswin Properties Ltd., has determined that the cost for a new football stadium in Winnipeg will be about $160 million — give or take.

Does that surprise anyone?

When Asper first presented his proposal to construct a new stadium for the Bombers, the cost was estimated at $115 million. Didn’t sound like much, but everyone assumed Asper had done his homework.

Trouble was, the original stadium plan was presented to the Blue Bombers board in January of 2007. That’s almost four years ago. Times have changed dramatically since then. Did anyone out there think costs would go down over the last four years?

Evidently some people did, proving once again that what you read in newspapers can often be much more surprising than the truth.

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger said on Friday that would meet with Asper and  Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz and find out how the increased costs would be covered. Whew?! Selinger didn’t think the costs for a stadium would rise in four years? Ouch.

To his credit, Selinger says he is still committed to a building new stadium for the Bombers simply because the current structure, Canad Inns Stadium, is a 55-year-old dinosaur that provides little or no parking or concession revenue for the club and is cracking at its foundations and along the sides of its second decks. Like Winnipeg’s aging infrastructure, Canad Inns Stadium needs more than a simple overhaul.

Naturally, people will whine about “the taxpayer getting gouged for more money,” but until the taxpayer tells the federal government to stop spending $1 billion per year on the CBC, those complaints ring hollow to me. I’d much sooner pay for a football stadium in my home town than a gargantuan national media company that tends to lean farther to the left than the NDP and far too often replaces facts with opinion.

Under an agreement signed last year, Creswin Properties would pay for most of the project, with the federal and provincial governments coming up with a combined $35 million dollars ($15 million goes directly to the University of Manitoba as its share in the stadium partnership). It’s unlikely Asper or Creswin has the dough to pick up an extra $40 million to $50 million.

Maybe we could call the new building: “NDP Government Stadium.”

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Laughing ‘Till it Hurts at Half-Time of the Bomber Game

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The Bombers are trailing 17-5 at the half against a really lousy Toronto Argonauts team and I have to admit, I feel bad for Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice.

Not only is he Jeff Reinebold without the whimsy, but he’s lost his quarterback, his offense can’t do much of anything and his field goal team team has just been scorched for 108 yards and a touchdown. Maybe Alex Brink will pull off a miracle in the second half because, goodness, gracious, Eden Prairie High School might have been the best team to play at Canad Inns Stadium this year.

It’s amazing, you know. Not just here in Winnipeg, where a 4-12 record beckons (yes, we called 4-14 at the beginning of the season), but all over the 1,000-channel universe, sports has been more fun than a barrel of Mike Kelly radio interviews. From a quarterback who texts pictures of his junk to suite hostesses to helmet-to-helmet hits to the CFL’s decision to remove players from games who wear pink, to fans disguised as seats in Phoenix,  Planet Sports just gets loonier every day.

For instance:

(1) The Onion reports this week that the NFL will fine Monday Night Football for its helmet-to-helmet smash in the pre-game musical intro. Read it here: http://www.theonion.com/articles/nfl-fines-monday-night-football-for-helmettohelmet,18312/ I’m still laughing and it sheds all the light you need on the NFL’s sudden fear of head injuries.

(2) When the Texas Rangers eliminated the New York Yankees from post-season play on Friday night, I found it interesting that the final out was the Yanks Alex Rodriguez being called out on a third strike. I was surprised there wasn’t a riot.

It was Cleveland Indians play-by-play announcer Tom Hamilton who said this year, “No wonder Yankees and Red Sox games last four hours all the time. Every time a Yankee or Red Sox player has a strike called against him it’s like an affront to his senses. Every one of them steps out and argues on every single called strike. These games take forever because the umpires won’t say ‘Shut up and get back in the box.’”

Hamilton is right. There is nothing more annoying than watching the Yankees whine about every called strike (except maybe watching Daryl Johnston on an NFL telecast without a mute button). Games take forever because the umpires are too frightened of or awestruck by the Yankees’ pinstripes. When A-Rod went down on a called strike, the Rangers started to celebrate, the umpires walked off the field and A-Rod had no one to complain to.

It was a moment of pure baseball Zen.

(3) Rod Black just said the Bombers have the wind at their back to start the third quarter. Then he said Bomber punter Mike Renaud was kicking into the wind.

Right now, the wind is out of the east at 11 kilometres per hour. Canad Inns Stadium runs north/south.

Honey, where’s the remote, I need to find that mute button.

(4) This week, the Phoenix Coyotes played a National Hockey League game in front of 6,700 people. On the same night the Manitoba Moose played an American Hockey League game in front of 6,100.

When is Gary Bettman just going to admit that it’s over in Phoenix? Last year, Coyotes president Doug Moss said to my face, “I believe that if we put a winner on the ice here, people will come.” Moss — a tremendous hockey mind and a great guy — was fired, the Coyotes started winning and still, nobody bothered to drive to that rink out in the middle of nowhere.

We all know that the NHL won’t return to Winnipeg until Bettman has completely exhausted all of his options in Phoenix. Of course, if he finds someone with a billion dollars and a brain larger than a walnut to buy that team,  and keep it in the Arizona desert, he’ll be the greatest snake oil salesman in American history.

(5) Yes, I know it’s only pre-season, but I love watching the Cleveland Cavaliers win and the Miami Heat lose.

Sure, reality sets in on Tuesday when the regular season begins, but for now, watching LeBron score 30 and still lose gives me hope for the future of mankind.

(6) BTW, Montreal Alouettes head coach, Marc Trestman, the former Golden Gophers quarterback, would make a great coach at the University of Minnesota.

We’ll be back with a Bomber update in about an hour.

BOMBER POST SCIRPT

Final score: Toronto 27 Winnipeg 8.

The season is over for the Bombers. They’re 4-12 and all playoff hope is gone.

On the up-side, they probably have more built-in excuses than any losing team in history. In order:

(1) It’s Mike Kelly’s fault. He damaged the brand.

(2) Oh, damn, Buck Pierce got hurt.

(3) It’s the referee’s fault.

(4) It’s Steven Jyles fault.

(5) It’s Alex Brink’s fault.

(6) Oh damn, Steven Jyles got hurt.

(7) Oh damn, Alex Brink got hurt.

(8) It’s Joey Elliott’s fault.

Now that the Winnipeg mainstream media’s darlings are 4-12, Mike Kelly looks pretty good doesn’t he?

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There Was a Time When the Crossover Was A Reward…

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

When the Canadian Football League moved Winnipeg back to the East and created the crossover playoff structure, the crossover was a reward.

It was created to honor a good team stuck in a great Conference. For instance, if the East had a 13-5 team and  12-6 teams and your favorite team was 10-8, your favorite team would make the playoffs because the West probably had a 12-6 champ and, ay, three teams that were about 4-14. A 10-8 team deserves to be in the playoffs.

This year, however, a team that is 6-12 could conceivably reach the post-season in the crossover because the B.C. Lions and Edmonton Eskimos are so bad, they’re both embarrassments to the CFL.

Yesterday, the Montreal Alouettes defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 22-19 because when it really counted, the Bombers offence couldn’t make a play. It’s been the same sad story all year for Winnipeg. When they play on the road, they stink. They’re 0-8 away from Canad Inns this season and with a 4-3 record at home, the Bombers are now 4-11.

And still, because Edmonton beat B.C. 31-28 in overtime on Saturday night, the 4-11 Bombers still have a legitimate chance to make the playoffs. Not only are Edmonton and B.C. both 5-10, there is no reason to believe either team will win another game this season.

Edmonton finishes the season at home to Saskatchewan, at home to Winnipeg and on the road at Saskatchewan. They could easily go 0-3 down the stretch. B.C. goes to Calgary, plays at home to Saskatchewan and goes to Hamilton. They could easily go 0-3 down the stretch. Winnipeg has Toronto at home this week, goes to Edmonton and plays host to Calgary. They could easily go 2-1 or even 3-0 down the stretch.

While the Canadian Press wanted to make it clear in their national game story yesterday that the Bombers were dead, nothing could be further from the truth. CP wrote, “The loss further dims the unlikely playoff hopes for the Blue Bombers,” when in fact, it doesn’t dim them much at all. After what happened on the weekend, the Bombers are officially two games back of Edmonton and B.C. (they must finish ahead of the Lions and Eskimos to claim the crossover) with three games to play and they have a relatively easy schedule to finish the year. The Lions and Eskimos have extremely difficult schedules. Winnipeg could make the playoffs with a 1-8 or even an 0-9 road record (if they win their two home games and B.C. and Edmonton lose out).

Look, the Bombers are a lousy football team, but they aren’t so lousy, they won’t make the playoffs.

And that, in itself, is as embarrassing to the CFL as the absolute dreadfulness of the three bottom teams in the league this year.


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Now There’s Trouble in River City… and it starts with T. and it rhymes with P. and it stands for P.U.

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

That was stinky. It was stinky early and stinky late and it left Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice with some real decisions to make.

Friday night’s football game at Canad Inns Stadium smelled funny. Hamilton 39, Winnipeg 28. In Winnipeg. A week after the Bombers should have won in Hamilton.

In four meetings during the first seven weeks of the season, the Tiger-Cats beat the Bombers three times. So now, before Labour Day, the Tiger-Cats have wrapped up the first playoff tiebreaker with Winnipeg. Throw in the fact Winnipeg is not only 2-5 on the season, but 2-2 at home and 0-3 on the road and you have a team that seems considerably worse than it was last year. And it wasn’t very good last year.

The Winnipeg media got its wish when the Bomber board of directors fired Mike Kelly, but the pleasant, new regime, the one that seems to respect the the local papers, the city’s TV stars and the club’s rightsholder, hasn’t been very successful. In fairness, it certainly didn’t help that Buck Pierce got hurt and you have to admit that injuries have definitely affected LaPolice’s plans this season, but just when it appeared that the Bombers were in a position to get to 3-4 before heading off to Montreal and Regina in successive weeks, they lay an egg at home and now there is a reason to believe that this team could be 2-11 by Oct. 1.

The Bombers are now, officially, not very good. Friday night’s game at Canad Inns Stadium was over early and all that was left by the end were a few die hard fans scattered in the stands and a head coach wondering how it could all have gone so badly.

After all, this was a Bomber team that looked good in its opener, a 49-29 shellacking of these same Tiger-Cats. Seven weeks ago this team looked pretty decent. Now, it looks like it needs a makeover. When the defence couldn’t stop Kevin Glenn, LaPolice gave up on Pierce. When the offence got going, a penalty or a turnover stopped the threat.

The Bombers did put up 290 yards passing and 121 yards rushing (with losses, 393 total yards) and four touchdowns, but Glenn threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns and more than 90 yards in penalties didn’t help the Bombers much either (Philip Hunt picked up four 15-yard penalties, himself).

It was just a lousy football game from the Winnipeg standpoint. The worst effort of the season. And now the schedule gets really difficult.

I know we’re only seven weeks in, but perhaps this team should start thinking about next year. Get rid of the old, slow guys and give the youngsters a shot right across the depth chart. Because the veteran players Paul LaPolice has been depending on, haven’t done the job.

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Just Plain Bad

Posted on July 17, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Here’s today’s question: Have we watched the point in professional sport — outside of golf, of course — where we’re going to make up the rules as we go along?

The NFL and NBA have been making up the rules for a long time. Hockey has no rules, or to be more fair, despite a number of changes and league directives, the rules are still different in the third period than they are in the first. Major League Baseball has reached the level of pure, unadulterated joke (Why bother having a strike zone? Play call your own. Don’t waste the money on a homeplate umpire). Officiating in the World Cup was comical.

And there is the Canadian Football League.

Just watched the PVR of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 28-7 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Watched the live version at Assiniboia Downs on Friday night and have just re-watched that debacle once again.

There is NO justification for calling the Kevin Glenn fumble in the third quarter a “non-fumble.” It was a fumble. The textbook definition of a fumble. If you look up the word fumble in the CFL rulebook, you are asked to go to www.tsn.ca to watch the replay of that fumble. And yet, even with video replay, there was some sort of excuse made up to make it a non-fumble.

It happened, of course, at an extremely important point in the game and may have changed the outcome (on the next play, Glenn threw a touchdown pass to make the score 21-0). The CFL should be ashamed.

The Bombers lost and fell to 1-2 on the season, tied with Hamilton for last in the East. It’s really not that big a deal. After all, this 18-game season is only three games old and the Bombers get the lousy Eskimos in front of the beer cup snake at Canad Inns Stadium next week.

But it just makes the league look bad and nobody needs that.

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LaPolice Says Watch Quarterbacks, Receivers and Defensive Secondary

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Paul LaPolice the new head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers met the local media on the eve of training camp on Tuesday and made it clear that every position was open and the competition for jobs would be on… right from the minute training camp opens.

However, when asked to be a bit more specific, LaPolice didn’t hesitate. When fans show up for training camp, they should watch the quarterbacks, the receivers and the defensive secondary.

“No question the quarterback position will be an open competition,” said the coach. “I think everyone is expecting Buck Pierce will be handed the job because he has so much experience, but that’s not true. Steven Jyles has experience and I know him pretty well, Stefan LeFors has experience as a starter and both Adam DiMechele and Alex Brink had great college careers. They all have a lot of skill. Right from the start, I want to see who can run our offence. That’s going to be the key for me.”

Meanwhile, the Bombers come to camp with a handful of good receivers and a load of guys who are unknown entities. Adarius Bowman, Aaron Hargreaves, Jabari Arthur, Brock Ralph and, the best of the bunch, Terrence Edwards are all well-known. However, we’ll have to learn a little about Will Franklin, Chris Davis, Travis Shelton, Chris Ioannides, D.J. Hall and Terence Jeffers-Harris.

The defensive secondary will be huge problem. Unless, of course, five guys we barely know, step up and become CFL all-stars. And don’t laugh, that almost happened last year.

We know about cornerbacks Keyuo Craver and LaVar Glover, lots about safety Ian Logan and a little about DBs Nick Kordic and Brandon Stewart, but we don’t a lot about Clint Kent, Bernard Hicks, Alex Suber, the U of M’s Brady Browne,  Jerry Jules-Ralph and Donald Brown.

This competition is wide open.

“I think the competition at defensive secondary will be the best at camp,” LaPolice conceded. “We lost some guys in the off-season and we have some positions that we need to fill. If guys come right in and have good camps, they’ll impress the coaches. If they wait, and say to themselves, ‘Well, I’ll really get the job done in the pre-season games,’ they might find themselves in trouble. They might not get enough opportunity in the pre-season games. These guys have to make an impression right away.”

Training camp will be fun to watch. Plenty of young football players will get very serious chances to make a CFL team.

To be fair, this is a rebuilding season for the Bombers. Unfortunately, it’s the 16th rebuilding season in the past 20 years.

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Big Decision By Bombers: Patrons Can No Longer Leave the Stadium and Return Later

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Monday afternoon, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will hold a news conference in conjunction with Winnipeg Police, to announce a radical new plan for the 2010 season. At least, it will be radical for some “football fans.”

This year, patrons who enter the stadium for any Blue Bombers game will not be allowed to leave and then return later. Instead, this season, if you leave the stadium, you’re gone. No pass out privileges allowed. It’s a move that’s sure to anger many Bomber fans, but it’s also a move that the Winnipeg Police Service believes is necessary to control the crowds –especially on the legendary East Side of Canad Inns Stadium — that are becoming increasingly drunk, rowdy and unmanageable.

“We’ve had a number of meetings with police about this issue and it’s been recommended to us that we no longer allow people to leave the stadium during the games and then return,” said Jeffrey Bannon, the Bombers marketing manager who has been the front man for this issue. “This isn’t something we ever wanted to do, it’s something we and the police believe we must do.

“Police have explained to us that people are leaving the stadium and bringing back materials they should be bringing back. There have been more incidents in recent years than police want to deal with and they’ve asked us to help them put a stop to it.”

Last year patrons got into a brawl with police and in another incident a man fell to his death. Police are spending far too much time arresting and simply trying to arrest people at Bomber games.

Those who frequent and comment on message boards have been clearly angered by this decision. But if you’re a football fan who just wants to watch football, it’s a decision that makes nothing but sense.

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New Bombers Stadium Has City “Insurance?” Well, Sort of but Not Really.

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The Winnipeg Free Press broke the new football stadium story this past weekend and on Tuesday, in its follow-up story, the paper wrote the following: “The new (stadium) deal would see the province reduce its commitment, in exchange for providing the financing necessary to build the stadium before The Elms get up and running. The city would act as insurance, should Creswin fail to assemble the retail project.”

Other than the fact the “deal” has no eyes and can’t see anything at all and that there is a comma in the middle of the first sentence that shouldn’t be there, to claim “the city would act as insurance,” is an odd and potentially frightening sentence. How would the city “act as insurance?” Where was this insurance money coming from?

Well, after a conversation with Mayor Sam Katz on Tuesday night,here’s the deal: The province will find the money (loans likely) to start construction on the stadium and, ultimately, David Asper will build a commercial mall that will be used to pay the debt on the stadium. However, if Asper can’t build his commercial development, The Elms, then the city would turn over all the property tax money that the city will receive on the current stadium land to the province to pay back the loans.

In other words, the city doesn’t receive any property tax money on that land today (the Bombers play in the stadium rent and tax free), but if some developer other than Asper purchased the land and built something (anything?) on the land, the tax money the city received for  that land — and that land alone — would go to the province to pay the debts on the new stadium at the U of M.

That seems reasonable. Ultimately, the city would be turning nothing into a new stadium.

I was told last night that Selinger’s new deal should be palatable for most taxpayers and the Premier is correct when he says there is no intelligent reason why more money should be shoveled into the toilet that is Canad Inns Stadium. According to the Premier, it would take $52 million to repair (not refurbish, but “repair”) the current stadium and that’s just throwing good money after bad.

Wednesday’s announcement will be the best news the Bombers have had since 1990. For those who have lost count, that’s the last time the Bombers won a Grey Cup.

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If Selinger Says So, Then it Has to Be True

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Scott Taylor| 2 Comments

Saturday morning, David Asper woke up to the best news he’s had since the Winnipeg Football Club accepted his proposal to build a new football stadium in Winnipeg way back in January of 2007.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Premier Greg Selinger would make an announcement “in days,” guaranteeing that he would “step in to ensure a new home  for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will be built at the University of Manitoba.”

As the story unfolded it became apparent that no one in Manitoba, including Asper, knew much of this incredible development but it was clear he was going to be the beneficiary of what appeared to be $85 million in provincial government money — $85 million that had not been written into the provincial budget.

But yesterday, Asper didn’t sound too happy.

“I’m not talking about it,” Asper snapped, when asked about the new deal. “Scott, I’m not going to talk about it.”

According to the Free Press, “Sources confirmed late Friday Selinger, Creswin (Properties), the City of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Ottawa are close to hammering out a new deal to build a scaled-down stadium, likely beginning this summer.”

That was news to Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz.

“I don’t know anything about it, nobody’s talked to me” Katz said on Saturday morning. “Right now I have people running around trying to find out what was promised the last few years. I do know that we can’t put any more money into the stadium we have now. The Tower Report, five or six years ago, said we needed about $10 million to improve the current stadium. That’s more than doubled. I won’t spend taxpayers money on that stadium.”

It’s funny, but only a couple of people who would be involved in the deal spoke to the Free Press, and not one of them said they knew anything of Selinger’s plans. However, I certainly believe the story is true. Everybody in town knows that if the provincial NDP government asks the Free Press to write a story, they’ll write it. The FP didn’t earn the nickname, “Official Newspaper of the Provincial NDP Government,” for nothing. This story definitely has legs.

Sadly, in its effort to get a stadium built, we hear that the government wants to scale back the new venue from a $135 million project to a $100 million project. One wonders what we’ll get for $100 million. The University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium is very nice, but not spectacular and it cost $288 million US. The total capital cost of the MTS Centre was $133.8 million and it’s a scaled down 15,001-seat AHL hockey rink. One wonders how many seats $100 million will buy?

Still, if this story is true, and I certainly believe it is, Selinger is going to give Asper an $85 million gift while the feds give him $15 million. When Asper gets his new mall operating, he’ll get an option to purchase the team. Wow! that IS a new deal. It’s not even close to the agreement the Bombers have with Asper. Not even close.

No wonder Asper wasn’t very happy this morning.

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What Happens If….?

Posted on December 28, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The decade of the 2000s or “The Aughts,” as they’ve been called, come to an end in about four days.

With that end, comes more questions than answers.

In fact, here are five questions, all starting with What Happens If….?

A brave new world awaits, old media panics, new media has a field day and if there is one thing we know, it’s this: Sports will change dramatically in the decade of the “Tens.”

So what happens if…

1) The Canadian Olympic Team doesn’t “win the podium” in Vancouver this February? With all the national, television-generated pre-Olympic hype, how badly will the traditional media treat our athletes if they don’t win every medal in every event. “I Believe,” it will get ugly.

2) The NHL’s non-traditional markets keep taking a beating? Tickets are now virtually free, the teams aren’t winning, there is limited interest, newspapers have stopped covering many of the teams on the road, Versus isn’t ESPN and there are often more empty seats than seats with butts in them. The NHL will look differently in five years if Bush’s recession doesn’t end.

3) The NHL’s non-traditional markets keep taking a beating? Will the NHL return to Winnipeg?

4) The CFL doesn’t get some new stadiums soon? Canad Inns Stadium in Winnipeg is a dump, Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton is worse, Ottawa doesn’t have a stadium, Toronto doesn’t have a place to play and the east coast still doesn’t have a suitable stadium for CFL expansion. The biggest problem in the CFL is not fan-support or media-support, it’s government support. And without new stadiums, the league could be on its last legs.

5) The Indianapolis Colts never get it back? After having the gall to actually charge people money for that debacle on Sunday afternoon, Colts chicken-livered head coach Jim Caldwell (coaching scared is the worst thing a coach can ever do) doesn’t deserve to win another game. If you look around the NFL, buildings are seldom full anymore. I’ve been in Jacksonville and Tampa this season when there have been 25,000-30,000 empty seats. The NFL can claim record numbers of sellouts if it likes (I think “tickets distributed” is the term), but only the best teams truly sell out anymore. Indy was a team that sold out, but if I was a fan, I would be a lot more hesitant about buying tickets in the future. When coaches throw games in order to rest the stars — because they are afraid of injury — the premise of professional football goes out the window. What happened Sunday in Indianapolis was unprofessional. In a recession that appears as if it’s going to last for decades not months, that kind of unprofessional approach to the game could come back and bite a franchise in the ass.

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