Conspiracy Theory Time!

Even notice how, when the government wants to announce something controversial they do it on a Friday afternoon and often before a long weekend? That way they aren't expected to be around to answer, people aren't paying as much attention, and there is time for the furor to die down because new topics take the place of the announcement.

This behavior has been well documented.

Now, our old website disappears on a Friday evening (before a long weekend), there's lots of controversy, and no staff around to answer questions.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I'd sure love someone to tell us if all the things we are missing are gone forever or if there is just an adjustment period.

  • Are scrolling heads gone?
  • Are our old pm's gone?
  • Are separate forums gone?

What exactly have we traded them for? Is this a league mandated change? Is there a rationale available for the faithful.... any rationale at all?

If not, this site gets less traffic from me as well because it has less utility and the ability to communicate has been lessened.

Not sour grapes---- just an honest observation.

....I liked re-reading some of our old threads .... on gamedays and on CHML bashing!

LOL!

Good observation Mark. I blame the Illuminate, for everything.

None of this matters anyway. The world is ending at the conclusion of the Mayan calander: 2012. Hopefully we'll have a few Grey Cup victories to celebrate between now and then.

The only conspiracy is money. As Bob Dylan said, "Money doesn't talk- it swears"... this site ain't about people any longer; it's about money. Welcome to CostMart.

I’ve been up late a lot working on the migration…

What now?

Yep. That said - I’m making a read only archive version of the old site.

We’ll see - we might have some of them back.

Better resources and features TBA during the season.

Lol. No.

There are business reasons and technical reasons… The first I’m not capable of discussing and the latter I will detail if you really like. :slight_smile:

I don’t see how.

Ron, by now you know we all get a little anxious when we see too much change too fast, we need time to settle in and get comfortable with the new surroundings.
Were also not used to having our "neighbors" quite this close to us.
Give it time and we'll all be back to our regular snarling and snapping about the price of beer, or tickets...or the price of our non picture tickets.
Gimme a car flag thread anyday.

Speaking of conspiracies, recall once seeing a huge article someone on the old ticats.ca that had a link to some newspaper clipping. he article was about how Gretzky was aapparantly a ticat fan in disguise while he was an owner of the argos. The article goes on to blame almost all the trouble the Argo's had back in early 90's on Gretzky. if someone could find this article again im sure we'd all enjoy a good laugh.

Here it is…The website I copied it from has really nasty -pop ups- so I’ll just paste it in it’s entirety…(I have the link if needed though)

[b]The Gretzky Conspiracy

In 1991 the Toronto Argonauts took their place at the top of the Canadian Football league when they won their 12th Grey Cup of the Century.

Leading the way on the field were star players like Mike ‘Pinball’ Clemons, Matt Dunigan, Rocket Ismail and D.K. Smith.

Leading the team off the field was the Hollywood trio of actor John Candy, Financier Bruce McNall and hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky.

The Argos were full of excitement and Toronto caught Argo fever as 50,386 packed the Skydome in the East Final as the Argos destroyed the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 42-3. With an average attendance of 36,304 (the highest since 1983) the Argos seemed ready to be a force on and off the field in the 90’s.

The following season in 1992, things started to change.

The Argos decided not to resign star QB Matt Dunigan for a paltry $250,000. They even were only going to pay him for games he actually played in! The Rocket turned into the Firecracker and the rest of the team just started to head south culminating in the firing of Grey Cup Champion Head Coach Adam Rita after only 11 games.

No one could understand the drop. One minute an invincible squad that looked like it would rival the Eskimos of the 70’s … the next a cellar dweller?

But no one at the time had thought of the Gretzky Factor. Who could think anything so insidious could be lurking around the next corner?

Here is a quotation taken from an article that Wayne Gretzky wrote for the 1999 Grey Cup in Vancouver for the National Post.

“It might be Thanksgiving Weekend down here but, for me, it’s still Grey Cup Weekend. I’ll be watching, same as every other Canadian. Come Grey Cup Sunday, everyone sits down to watch. And I’ll be right up front about it: I’ll be cheering for my Hamilton Tiger-Cats. I know, I know. I was once a minority owner of the Toronto Argonauts and we even won a Grey Cup together in 1991 – wonder how many guys have both Grey Cup and Stanley Cup rings? – but in sports a piece of your heart always stays with your very first team. I grew up in Brantford and loved the Ticats, who played just down the road. My first great heroes were named Joe Zuger and Tommy Joe Coffey and Angelo Mosca. So with apologies to the Calgary Stampeders, I’ve got to go with my heart.”

Wayne Gretzky … Part owner of the Toronto Argonauts … was actually a huge fan of the hated and vile Hamilton Tiger Cats?

This leads to some interesting questions …

Is it possible that the slide the Argos took in 1992 was the result of Wayne Gretzky destroying the Argonauts from within?

Is it possible that after Wayne Gretzky won his Grey Cup Ring … his vanity was served and then he conspired to make the Argos and their fans pay?

Is it possible that the Argos difficult seasons between 1992 and 1995 were the result of destructive tampering by Wayne Gretzky?

A Ticat Fan?

Is Gretzky Crazy?

Was there a Conspiracy?

You be the Judge. [/b]

Gretzky should get his face out of the mud, and move the Jets back to Winnipeg where they belong.

and Hamilton should build a nice new stadium for the Cats.

Amen to that.

The TiCats have a nice stadium. I wonder if Red Sox and Yankee fans talk about their ball parks like some of our fans do.

Ron-
The business reasons side is what a lot of us suspect.
The tech reasons? Yup, I expect that there will be a lot more 'bells 'n whistles' eventually. You, as a tech person, look for these. As for me? I cared about the sense of community, the familiarity, the ease of use, and the history.

Different perspectives. They will probably never merge. Will I come onto the site because there's a flash movie or a sound clip? Nope. Too much of that and I'll even avoid it on purpose! Will I come on because I recognize the people and feel at home? Yup.

You questioned the communication 'bit.' You must admit- even just adding the suggestion forum increases the utility of the communication. I think my point (not to gloat) has been made there. The other forums served their purposes as well.

Finally, the accumulated history and ease of accessing it made communication easier as well. It will take - let's see - three years minimum to make up for the three years lost. Perhaps an achived site will help- in that case please put a direct link to it from the current site so we can find it.

I think the issue is (and I do a lot of work on conflict management and resolution) is that communication is key and that the best communication happens beforehand.

The trouble is, I (like everybody else) think that my ideas are so wonderful that I believe everyone will accept them happily. I've found that it just isn't so. Some prior discussion, some polling, and some chance to personally archieve specific info, would have gone a looong way to keeping people very happy with the site and the club.

Not intentianally, but as a result of the way things were done, some alienation resulted instead. I am really surprised that someone in the front office didn't pick up on this in advance and ensure that the transition went smootly.

I don't believe that the club, or the administrators, are unintelligent individuals. That left the strong possibility that people 'somewhere there' just didn't really care about the loyal gang who have been with you since the site first began. I DON't want to believe this.

But another rule of conflict management is, 'once trust is broken it takes an extremely long time to recover.' Note- it DOESN'T have to be intentional. The way this transition happened felt to many of us like a breach of trust. At the same time, you guys ARE the ticats and we are really just individual consumers. perhaps the problem is that, over the last few years, we had come to feel that the relationship was somewhat different. I feel very foolish for thinking this way.

All the best.

Amen to that too (hey, it’s Sunday)

I know its late but that "Mikey"ost about Wayne Gretzky is out of the world whacked and idiotic...

In fairness, not saying that Mikey is, but who ever was the "writer" was on some weird and wonderful drugs, or similar mind bending things to think that Wayne would ever diss a sport in this manner...

The "slides" the Argo's periodically take are due to coming back to earth, typically with a "bump", if not a crash...when Damon gets nailed by someone in the League this year and his age prevents him from both recovery or further play, such will be a mere example...when Pinball stumbles on "recovering" someone who needs his butt kicked (let alone how this antagonises inter-League relationships!)the Argo's will fall into a swan dive (again!), and if there isn't a Pinball character to pick them out of it, well, God help the CFL...