It sounds like if the Maritime region builds it, the CFL will come.
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie was on News 95.7 in Halifax on Monday and made it clear that a stadium is the main stepping stone towards a franchise on the east coast.
“We think we’ve got a really good set of partners to work with there. I know they’re having ongoing discussions with the city, the province and federal government about a facility for football, and obviously to bring both national and international events to the Maritime region, which would be exciting for all Canadians,” Ambrosie said on The Rick Howe Show.
“We have seen some new and innovative strategies emerge. There are new ways of approaching a stadium development that weren’t around in the Schooners attempt to get a team up and running. The Canadian Football League continue to work with this group and be supportive as we can be, but recognizing that the big gate in all of this is getting a stadium built that can hold both football and other events for the Maritime region.
The CFL boss believes the success of the Riders could be replicated.
“If you look at this really using Saskatchewan as a proxy you would see that they align very similarly, Regina to Halifax and the region itself to what’s happened in Saskatchewan. It’s not the Regina Roughriders it’s the Saskatchewan Roughriders. In conversations we’ve had with this group they are more than aware and in fact excited about the possibility of having a team that really belongs to the entire region.”
For that to be possible the stadium is the key.
“So much of it would be decided based on what happens on this stadium development idea,” Ambrosie said. “The question ultimately is can this group along with the levels of government come up with a stadium concept that really works for the region and if they can then there’s no reason to believe that this couldn’t come together reasonably quickly, probably two to three years is a reasonable time frame.”
Listen to the entire interview here.
