Lights at THF

There's been quite a few dropped passes at Tim Hortons Field where it looked like the receiver lost track of the ball.

Here's a clip from Tuesday's episode of CFL in 30, where after a couple of dropped passes Tasker & Giguere talk about losing the ball in the lights.

[url]Balls in the lights at Tim Hortons Field - YouTube

I assume the lights they're talking about are the ones at the corners of the stadium, rather than the ones extending from the top of the stands. On most of the drops it seems like that's the direction they were looking.

I wonder if there's anything they can do about either repositioning or redirecting those lights? So many dropped passed (for either team) makes the game look bad.

"Lights. Yeah, that's the reason. I knew it had to be something."

  • Adarius Bowman

I wonder if that's the reason why Ottawa receivers are dropping Hank's passes?? :roll:

Every stadium has lights, don't make excuses for missed catches. It's part of the game, just like crowd noise and the weather. Deal with it.

Obviously every stadium has lights. The way they’re talking in the clip though it almost sound like something’s abnormal about these ones, like the intesity coming from that angle. I know Ivor Wynne never had lights from that direction. Other than the sunset.
Maybe it really is just something new that they have to get used to. I don’t know.
It just makes me curious as to what the end zone lighting positioning is like in the other stadiums. I’ve been to most of them in the league, but it’s not something I’ve paid attention to.

I agree the lighting configuration may be affecting receivers. But for me, I want to jog around THF in mid-Feb with all the lights on to cure my S.A.D. It is bright!!

It would be an "issue" for both teams involved.........suck it up & play the game.
Better yet, do your job & catch the ball. If you can touch it, you can catch it.

:rockin:

Hard to catch it if you can’t see it. And yes, it would affect both teams, and I do remember a game a few weeks ago where a couple of receivers on both teams appeared to lose sight of the ball.

Actually, I could see this turning into another home field advantage, knowing when to avoid certain plays.

If you look at this daytime picture you can sort of see how the position of those corner lights could be a bit of a problem for slant throws at certain parts of the field during night games. I recall about 6 or 7 dropped passes or where players slowed down having seemingly lost the ball in the lights on angled throws that I can see would potentially be lost in those (very bright) lights. The diagonal angle of them combined with the fact that they are lower is certainly something making Tasker and Giguere's comments understandable if the ball happened to be in a trajectory that lines up with those lights.

corner "candlestick" flood lights like those are common in soccer stadiums (ie. BMO field, and all over europe), not as common in football stadiums.

not sure why they decided to go that route. could have just added additional lights on the east and west grandstand like most other stadiums and the former Ivor Wynne

I remember one particular play, I think in the Edmonton game, that happened near the sideline right between the two teams’ benches.
Can’t remember who was on offence, but both the receiver and the DB were looking back toward the ball, and it looked like neither of them saw it, and it hit one of them in the head (or maybe the shoulder). They would have been looking directly at that corner light in this picture.

Wasn’t this stadium designed in part for the upcoming Pan-Am games to host some soccer games? I’m thinking that the designers forgot to put those lights on a separate circuit - or at least forgot to tell the Ticats how to turn them off for football games.

definitely not. a football field is larger than a soccer field. they need those additional lights for the endzone. it would be far too dark if they didn’t have those lights corner candlestick lights