Saskatchewan offers to kick in stadium cash, but not as much as Regina wantsBy The Canadian Press Share this Article
The Saskatchewan government is saying no to Regina’s request for $230 million for a project that includes a new football stadium for the CFL Roughriders.
But the province says it will kick in up to 30 per cent for a stadium to a maximum of $80 million.
The government says in a letter to Regina Mayor Pat Fiacco that it would want to see any new stadium ready for a roof in the future.
The letter says the province would also be willing to finance a portion of the project in the form of a loan.
The province punted its own plans for a domed stadium last year due to a lack of federal funding and said it would be up to the city to come up with a new proposal.
The city has suggested an open-air stadium to replace the aging Mosaic Stadium, current home of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
I really hope Regina goes for a covered stadium. This would give the league 4 covered stadiums and, I would hope that the Grey Cup should be played in one of these places each year. I remember watching the CIS final a couple of year's back from Saskatoon. The cold was extreme that day and the play was dictated by the cold- low scoring, difficult for passing etc. The weather was like north Siberia- not at all good for such a game.
The owners of the other four (soon to be five) CFL teams would never go for that, especially with new stadia in Winnipeg, Hamilton and Ottawa. Once every city has a good facility (namely, once Hamilton gets the upgrade), I think they should simply rotate the game between the eight (soon to be nine) cities with no preferential treatment going to teams with domes.
The East hasn’t had it for 3 years, my heart bleeds. Tor-46,Ham-10,Mont-8,Ott-6…Van-14,Cal-4,Edm-4,Winn-3,Reg-3. If Van. didn’t have a dome, they still be down around 6 or 7 Cup games.
serious question... they are giving 30 percent or 80 million but to what stadium? i mean, seriously... is there even a legit proposal out there? or are they just saying, we would pay up to 80 million towards a future building that currently isnt even on a drawing board anywhere?
Hamilton has hosted twice in the modern history of the game (1972 and 1996), and 30 of Toronto’s 46 took place at Varisty Stadium or Rosedale Field (which means they all came before 1960) and only three have been held at the SkyDome. I see no problem with rotating from East to West each season while rotating cities as well. It would give fans in every city who maybe can’t afford to travel a chance to see a Grey Cup at least once every eight or nine years. I don’t see why that is unreasonable.
When fans are bragging about how many GCs their team has won, nobody states it in “the modern history of the game” and I fail to see where the game was played has anything to do with it. When the CFL and the Argos were recently bragging, and rightfully so, about the 1st GC ever played, they went to Rosedale field. History doesn’t accommodate the existing generations. When I was very young I honestly thought that Toronto was the only place the GC was ever played. A city that hasn’t had a team for many years still has more GC games than 4 of the west teams. A little bit of balance might be in order.
So your answer is to punish fans who watch the game now and weren’t around 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years ago in order to find “a little bit of balance”? I doubt a 30-year-old fan of the Lions, Stamps, etc. cares if Grey Cups weren’t played there in the 1940s, just as Argo fans of the same age didn’t get to enjoy it when the game was played there in the same time frame. We’re talking about now, and just because Toronto has hosted 46 Grey Cups shouldn’t dictate whether they should host it again. Once every team has a modern-ish stadium, I see no reason (and your reason is probably lamest anyone will come up with) why the league shouldn’t try to set up a system where the game rotates from east to west and from team to team.
Well, you’ve already publicly stated that Regina would not get a new stadium. Long rants on that as i recall. Time to eat crow, well at least a real man would.
Punish what fans? Do you mean the ones in those over populated cities that don’t bother going to their teams games? The fan base out west fill their stadiums. Their attendance is far better. Why shouldn’t they get a few more Cup games to reward their loyalty.The East in your modern times has shown little support. No Western team has folded and no Western team in your modern time is still struggling with attendance. Now you want GC games.
You know what's great about the CFL? All those western Canadians who normally complain about how Torontonians think everything revolves around Toronto start acting like everything CFL revolves around western Canada.
You’ve still yet to provide compelling reasons why the league shouldn’t rotate the Grey Cup. With so few teams and without the need to kowtow to corporate sponsors who don’t want to sit out in the cold like with the Super Bowl, there is no good reason not put the game on a rotating basis from east to west and team to team. You seem to be the only person who has a problem with it. I think most fans would think it was a great idea, knowing that once every nine years their city would host the Grey Cup. Saskatchewan deserve to have more Grey Cups; same with Winnipeg and Hamilton and Edmonton and Calgary. My comment came about because I didn’t want to see open-air stadia shut out of the Grey Cup process (which, by the way, would exclude Calgary and Edmonton from the process; two teams you believe deserve to host more Grey Cups to balance things out) and you turned this into some eastern bash-fest.
But continue with your western elitism. Oh, and for the record, this year’s Grey Cup – you know, the one in one of those “over populated cities that doesn’t bother going to their teams games” – is already sold out: http://www.cfl.ca/article/going-going-g … -sells-out