Quebec City, NOT Halifax please!

I've read a lot of comments by people who would rather have a Halifax team than one from Quebec City.

Why?

While I desperately want a 10-team league and would be happy with a Halifax team, Quebec City would make a much better choice for an obvious, simple reason:

A potential awesome rivalry with Montreal!

If Halifax joined the league, who would THEIR "big rivalry" be with...? They wouldn't have one.

Distance plays a big factor... I don't know too many people from other CFL cities who'd make the trek out to Halifax for games, and vice-versa...

Quebec City is the better choice.

No word on a CFL-calibre stadium being built there though, so unfortunately it's probably a pipe dream at this moment.

There are plenty of existing threads that hash this out in great detail.

In sum, either would be good, but neither have stadiums, owners etc. And Halifax is always been the motherhood issue for the CFL reaching from coast to coast.

I want Halifax so the league will be truly national with representation coast to coast. As to whether Halifax would get a lot of fan support I can only guess. But I'm guessing they would.
Rivalries sometimes happen for other reasons than geographical closeness so I wouldn't assume that they would never develop them.
Plus I think Atlantic Schooners is a great name.

Hopefully Nova scotia will be represented.

Forget Schooners as a moniker.

It'll be something else -- just like Ottawa team won't be Rough Riders when they return.

I think Atlantic Schooners is a great name too, like the Milwaukee Brewers or any other name that was used for a defunct team.

Halifax would make the league a truly coast to coast league, and help developed football in a place that doesn't have a junior league.

We will talk about Quebec after Halifax, Quebec right now should focus on getting back into the NHL, IMO.

Naming a team that doesn’t exist is a bit premature (Steelbacks) I know, but why do you say that it won’t be Schooners?

I think Schooners is fine. Just not atlantic. Halifax or Nova Scotia.

I really beleive we can support a team. Halifax has more people than Regina, NS has just less than Saskatchewan, and in less space.
All of the maritimes have less space than Saskachewan, and more than double the population.

Any way we can please lets get more football stadiums built in this country in the 25,000 range.
You know it's sort of sad, and don't get me wrong I'm not a huge soccer fan not because it isn't a good game or anything but just because I didn't grow up with it, that Canada will never be a nation probably that could ever dream of hosting a World Cup, not because we don't have the population to support it, I think we do, but because we don't have the stadiums for it. I think the soccer people and the football people in this country should network with each other more to help get stadiums upgraded and facilities built that can be combo football/soccer stadiums. Because having the World Cup here one day, even if you aren't a huge soccer fan, would be quite something, in fact, unbelieveable, can you imagine the tourism and influx of money, I mean, look at Germany and all those fans in those beautiful stadiums - what a dream for Canada to host such an event.
As I say, even if you aren't a huge soccer fan like me.

What people don’t seem to understand is you CAN’T create a rivalry. Rivalries emerge naturally. The league has tried hard over the last four years to establish the belief Montreal and Ottawa were big rivals. Truth is we couldn’t care less about the games we played against Ottawa. Nobody cared.

In Montreal, games against the Esks and against the Lions are the ones people wait for. Not because they’re rivals, but just because games against these two are always thrillers settled in the dying moments of the game. Exciting games. But Ottawa… pffft !

So my point is creating a team in Halifax would not necessarily mean they’d be rival with anyone or not. But that changes nothing to the interest of the fans.

Who’s BC big rival? No one. BC and Montreal don’t really have legendary rivalries with anyone. It doesn’t keep them from giving a hell of a good show.

I'm from QC originally so of couse I'd LOVE a team in QC.
However, I understand that Halifax is the better city
-as they have a larger population with all the Maritimes around.
-Possibly getting some kind of games that might help the funding of a stadium
-Make a coast to coast league.

BUT
-QC is popluar right now with football because the Rouge et Or are winning. Put an expansion team there and I'm not sure it'll be popular.
-There's no stadium. ULaval plays in a small stadium and everybody else is standing around the feild to fill the 12000 attendance.
-The Als seem to be AGAINST it!! Imagine that! They feel that the Quebec market is theirs!

Bottom line, I wish that QC would be in the league but it makes more sense to start with Halifax... or both at the same time!

I'll put something here I posted in the EXPANSION forum (Poll). Halifax is a Navy town. They have a large transplanted population. So these Navy people might comne to halifax with already knowing the CFL and loving it. They probably would love a team there and support it well and as for rivals they may not need one big rival they may get several with the transplanted population. Also rivalry may just delvelop on its own and may not need to be preplanned.

Killic

It won't be Schooners because that was name of the proposed team when JI Albrecht was involved in 83. That brings up too many memories of failure.

It will have a Maritime name no doubt tho.

Third, don't you think that part of the problem with the Ottawa-Montreal rivalry was that Ottawa was just never a very good team? Hard to have a rivalry when one team is so clearly dominant. If the Gades had stuck around, become a contender, and maybe handed us some stinging losses in the playoffs, I think the rivalry would have taken off just fine. Tell me that there isn't a nice little rivalry going between us and Toronto now that the Argos are a contender that has knocked us off once in the playoffs recently.

I think geography will also be a big factor in determining rivalries as the league grows in size and teams don't play each other so often. It will allow the league to emphasize geographical rivalries more in the schedule. So to that extent I think a franchise in Quebec City would be tremendous. Anyone who remembers the days of the Quebec Nordiques knows what a killer provincial feud the Canadiens had going with them.

Sure, there’s a little something, but it comes nowhere near the rivalry they have with Hamilton. Now THAT is a rivalry.

But that would seem to support the idea that provincial rivalries are the best kind.

Our natural rivals over the years have been the Eskimos(when we had a consistent conteding team) and the Bombers. The rivalry with Winnipeg really took off when they started to play the Labour Day games here.
I would say that Ottawa and Halifax are the likely cities the CFL will expand to, and QC could be not too far behind them. Only thing would be a western expansion team to even out the divisions. No matter what anyone says, I think Saskatoon would be a great city to expand to, and it would help for a World Cup soccer bid as well.

[color=darkred]What people don't seem to understand is you CAN'T create a rivalry. Rivalries emerge naturally. The league has tried hard over the last four years to establish the belief Montreal and Ottawa were big rivals. Truth is we couldn't care less about the games we played against Ottawa. Nobody cared.

It's pretty tough to get excited about a rivalry with a team that has been as bad as Ottawa has for the last 25 years. From what I've heard though, it used to be a pretty intense rivalry (I'm not old enough to remember).

I think the CFL is a bit different than most leagues because of the fewer teams, it's a bit more of a family atmosphere among fans of the different teams. Don't get me wrong, us Cat fans don't like much Argo fans and I know the Stamps and Eskies aren't buddies and well, everyone out west hates the Riders and in the east, we all hate the Als but I think really, because we also know the precariousness of the survival of the league at various times, I think we are a bit more of a family lot among ourselves despite us all wanting to win each year the GC.

I laugh at all the people who think the CFL will be an 11 or 12-team league in a few years...

They've talked about building a CFL-quality stadium in the martimes for-what- 30 years? Now you're expecting 3 new CFL-quality stadiums to be built in Canada in the near future?

Riiiight.

Anyways, back to the original topic:

Halifax wouldn't have a natural rivalry with any other CFL team whereas Quebec City would instantly have one with the Alouettes.

And great rivalries is one reason the CFL is such a great league.