The posts I am reading here from people dumping on gades fans are making me want to puke. Any Gades fan that is posting on this site is obviously a die hard fan so don't pick on them. All this crap about having two kicks at the can is ridiculous as well. You don't win fans with a crappy product. These four seasons don't count because we never had a team that could draw new fans to the game.
I am 23 years old and I am a die hard fan. No Ottawa team has had a winning record while I have been alive, not even within three years of me being alive. Very few of my friends like the CFL because all they have ever seen from it here in Ottawa is crappy football. When you go to your first ever game and the home team loses by 20 points, it is not fun. you don't go back. I bought season tickets this year, spent $400 when I am almost 15 g's in debt from university. My few friends that are interested in the CFL urged me to wait with them and buy the $99 seats when they went up for sale. It was tempting but I wanted to support the team cause I was worried this would happen.
For all you people dumping on the fact that only 2000 season tickets have been sold, think about it. Would you have spent $400 on season tickets in December if you knew that everyone sitting around you will have only paid $99 in May or June? How many of your friends would have done that? Please think about that before you shoot off your ignorant mouth at the Gades fans posting here Statik76. You people should be encouraging us, because we are the only hope for CFL in Ottawa. The only way the CFL would work if we can brainwash enough of our friends into thinking that it is fun to stay home from their cottages to watch a lousy team get hammered! That is hard enough, let alone when people who call themselves "true" CFL fans are dumping crap on our heads.
The only people that I would say have the right to say anything would be Rider fans. I've heard a lot of crap about Calgary fans putting up with crappy teams in the 80's and 90's, but the first grey cup I remember somehow they were (okay, yes they did lose to Toronto and the rocket) and the few times I was lucky enough that my dad took of work to take me to games in the next few years, we got completely hammered by the stamps. Didn't they win a couple cups with Flutie at the helm there? Garcia? Man, I can not believe people kept going to the games if they had to watch those two crappy qb's. (for those of you who could not tell, that last sentance was sarcasm!)
alright, I need to stop because I am just getting more and more frustrated as I write this and will soon punch a hole in my wall if I do not stop. Enjoy watching our players this year. Hopefully Hebert can play, because whoever gets him is in for a treat!
........and here I thought the title of this thread was directed at the citizens of Ottawa........south side, sounds like you need to find new friends as they are partly responsible for the demise of your football team......those friends!...sheesh.....
okay so ottawa is not getting a lot of support from around the league. my question is this. was there ever a rally to save the gades. you know the type. all the gades fans marching through the streets stopping traffic depending help from the government to support civic pride. a sports team is not merely an entertainment option like a movie theatre. it brings people together, helps develop a sense ofthe community. To just let a major sports team dissolve is bad for the whole city. i know when the jets left there was a huge demonstration at the legislature and my friends and i got permission to resched an exam so we could be there. It was a huge event that brought the city together and then they proceeded to tear our hearts out and float them down the river but that is not the point. I never heard anything about gades fans banding together to try to show how much support there was. instead we here that maybe there were some fans that were waiting for tickets to get cheaper. that is some pretty lousy support if that is as good as it got. maybe there was a lot more but the media sure didn't pick it up out here. as i have said previously i feel really bad for the true fans in ottawa but it seems like you were a fairly lonely group.
.......south side......no one is blaming the fans, just those non-fans that didn't care to support a team......great if there are 15,000 fans in Ottawa, not so great that you need 10,000 more to support a team.....I've heard arguments that those 10,000 soft fans could have been coaxed into the stadium with proper marketing and such and maybe that's correct but we'll never know.....blame the Gliebs, blame Tom Wright and the BOG for not recognizing the warning signs.......but don't hold back blame on those friends of yours that helped seal the fate of your team.....
If a few of these ottawa superfans had read through my posts for the last month or so ... they'd see I recomended a grass-roots campaign (much like how we did in Winnipeg)... instead of helping their cause - they chose to wait and see. I was 14 years old when the Jets left - but it didn't stop me from going door to door, and stopping cars in traffic to collect money for the save-the-jets campaign.
a grassroots campaign does not organize itself. A grassroots campaign is not created by the league ... its created by the fans that want to save the team from an potential demise. Why didn't this happen? Why do the people of Ottawa feel that the league owes them a team .. or owes them to float their teams losses? Why is it up to the league to find your team ANOTHER owner?
i've said it a million times ... i'll say it again - having a team in the CFL is a privledge not a right ...
I hear a lot of whining and complaining regarding the teams lousy owners, lousy management, lousy schedule dates, lousy weather, lousy league not assisting us again, lousy friends that goto the cabin, lousy team record, lousy stadium, lousy everything ... and thats why they're gone ... Its a city that couldn't organize / float a football franchise on its own without the assistance of other teams or assistance from the league ... Get your city in order, and re-apply next year...
The leafs have sucked for years - yet they sell out every game. using your record as an excuse is just pathetic ... the league/team does not OWE you a winning season - its a competition .. sorry your team sucks every year - its all part of the game ... if you can't handle losing, you maybe shouldn't be playing/watching.
you support your team through thick and thin ... period. you don't sit back whine and complain, and wait for someone else to fix YOUR problem. Now your problem is worse - you don't have a team ... What are you going to do about it? Complain? Whine? Wait ... ?
ORR ... I think you need to do some reading to better understand how large of a grassroots campaign we are talking about here ...
http://www.curtiswalker.com/jets/savejets.asp
The people of Winnipeg raised just over 13,000,000.00 (yes - 13 million) in an effort to save the Jets ... Despite the result - the people of Winnipeg did absolutely EVERYTHING possible to try and save the team.
........nope, in the Jets case it was a greedy owner group wanting to relcoate to the riches of the US with the full backing of the league office.......two totallly different situations.....
My point is, the fans had no control of either situation, so why are you blaming the Ottawa fans ? THe CFL did not help the situation the same way the NHL did not help the Winnipeg Jets fans because they did not give a hoot about the fans.
........because the citizens of Ottawa are partly to blame here for not supporting their team..........not the good fans, the ones that were too lazy to get off their behinds and say 'hey, I'd like football to stay in my City'.......
