blueandgoldguy

It all comes back to having to start and build that stadium when they did. Any further delays would have resulted in further expenditure at the old stadium….and now you're talking wasting money. If everybody agrees that a new stadium had to be built, then it was a matter of where and when. We may have short-sighted the location, but I'll tell you right now…the way these politicians work and the process to acquire another location (never mind agree on another location) would have taken years….if at all. But I'll surely agree the money to acquire a proper stadium design and build should have been spent. At the very least there would have been a major refurbishment at the old stadium. If not, the new stadium would have been constructed eventually. Canad Inns probably had at most a decade left in it's lifespan before being condemned (One of Landowne's grandstands was condemned and torn down a few years ago and it wasn't as old as Canad Inns grandstands). No politician (conservative or NDP) would have suffered the embarrassment of being in charge while a CFL team became homeless. Do agree with you that the proper stadium design and build should have been pursued as well as a better location (preferably old stadium site and possibly at the downs).

No I'm comparing the business people in charge of these respective pro teams and how they negotiate with the province and city. I'm not sure how the business people on the board would fail to account for the extra costs associated with bus transport and negotiate accordingly. Did they not realize more people would have to take the bus to get to the Bomber games and thus they would have to rent more buses and pay more drivers to accomodate those people? Apparently not, as they came to the province nearly one year later asking for a discount on bus transportation.

When you factor in the yearly subsidies for the bus transportation alone that will nullify the money they received from the feds within a decade or so. Then there is the issue of extra costs associated with using the plans of an architect (Ray Wan) who has never designed a stadium in his life...already seen a few million wasted because of design flaws and who knows how many more millions in the coming decades. Would have been better off hiring a firm with experience in stadium construction

Yet another example that illustrates the difference (business competence) between Bomber management (the BBB) and Jets management. Bomber management -agreeing to pay the $4.5 million debt obligation annually in the first year only to renegotiate to delay first $4.5 million payment by several years...and on top of that adding $10 million in extras late in stadium construction to exacerbate their debt repayments. -Unable to forecast the additional costs associated with transit due to the stadium location which results in the organization negotiating a subsidy with the city after the fact to mitigate costs. Meanwhile Jets' management (owners) - negotiated to privately finance 2/3 of the MTS Centre before construction began. Originally they were going to privately finance 100% of the arena across from the Convention Centre. Would have been a 12,000 seater and 90 miliion or so. Province and city convinced them to build 15,000 seater on site of the Eaton's building and chipped in the rest. - Negotiated subsidies with the province (VLT revenue and reimbursement of entertainment tax) prior to the puck dropping for the first Jets game in 2011. -Spending millions (private money by the way) to enhance customer experience at the MTS Centre...latest being the expansion of the upper deck concourse with expanded washrooms facilities and concessions. Now you could argue against the subsidies the jets receive, that's certainly fair. However the Jets' owners drew up a business plan that determined what they needed to make the operation a viable one and negotiated these subsidies with the province and the city..all that prior to the first game of the Jets' inaugural season. And they have done this with the intention to spend millions each year until 2020 to update the MTS Centre as outlined in their email to season ticketholders - expanded concourse, expanded concessions, expanded washrooms, new scoreboard, improved restaurant facilities at event level plus a few more added benefits. No coming back to the province hat in hand stating we did not foresee these _____ costs years later. In contrast the Bombers' management, in their infinite wisdom, did not have a very good business plan in place otherwise they would have negotiated beforehand with the city or province to account for the additional transportation costs given the location of the stadium...not come hat in hand asking for subsidies nearly one year after completion of the stadium. To do so now, show a lack of competence and due diligence on their part. Further, I doubt any improvements and major repairs to the stadium over the coming decades will be funded by the Bombers at least in any substantial way..most likely the province will take care of that.

For the most part I agree. The Bombers are only one team in the CFL. Big profits but big paybacks (liabilities) too. Plus Toronto & Hamilton are pretty marginal operations right now. Ottawa remains to be seen after their year 1 honeymoon. I suspect there will be more rights for CFL players, especially 3+ year veterans, a higher salary cap - perhaps $250k to $350k more, perhaps one extra canadian, one extra import per team. Other thing the league minimum salary might increase by $5 to $6.5k. I think the players will get a $200,000 or so raise (or 1/5th the annual additional revenue from the tv deal) in the first year and it will culminate in a $1 million raise by the fifth and final year of the tv contract. So within 5 years the players will receive nearly half the new tv revenue.

Yes and as Iso stated earlier the traffic there would have been worse than the U of M site. Based on where they would have built the stadium in the Point Douglas proposal ( the waterfront) there would have been two ways out - Higgins (a crappy winding road which bottlenecks down to two lanes at the Higgins bridge going east) and Waterfront Dr (a two-lane street not exactly conducive to heavy traffic). Not sure why people use the Disraeli as an argument for the Point Douglas stadium as you can't even access it from Point Douglas. It's only accessible from Main St.

And I agree, no lectures, and it should work both ways. But the only thing I would add is, consumers should just educate themselves on what they're ingesting and take it from there. One common misconception is the belief that simply washing your foods will erase any memory of pesticides…that has been proven false. what about using that vegetable/fruit wash spray? That's what I use - spray it on, rub it on the fruit or vegetable to get a lather going then wash it off with water. Does that remove the pesticides?

Anonymous caller is probably a Rider fan.

Meh, the transitway will only be useful for anyone coming through downtown or from the north (west of the river), probably far less than half of people taking transit to the game. Not necessarily. Anyone could park anywhere along its path and have quicker egress from that quagmire around the U. Remember - game day tickets allow fans a free ride. In no time people would figure it out and the need for parking and spaces would diminish. Also, most of those game day buses wouldn't be needed, leaving the roadway for cars only. Less cars, less buses less hassle. I know its true, I read it on a bus billboard when I was aboard and bored. Just crossing the river to park on the transitway for anyone from the east side of the city would double travel time. Honestly, if I have to cross the river to access reasonable transit to the stadium, I'm driving the whole way, but we park for free about 2 KM's south of the stadium and walk. And there's zero chance I'm wading into the mess that those buses are after the game. I've been to some interesting places and I don't think I've seen anything quite as dangerous as the number of drunk people staggering down University Crescent combined with people whizzing by on bikes and confused bus drivers/riders trying to figure out where to go, all of this in the pitch black dark. I'm surprised at the lack of private shuttles to the stadium. I thought places like BP, Tavern etc would be all over that. I really think it's a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or even killed on Chancellor Matheson..at which point the city will then decide to spend a several million extending the sidewalk on the north side of Chancellor Matheson all the way to Pembina, as well as adding streetlights along the route and probably a few designated crosswalks for good measure. Reactive rather than proactive.

With regards to the $1.2 million in transit costs, I thought toward the end of last season it was announced that MPI would be paying for all gameday transit?

I think it's the large number of immigrants from outside the country - don't identify with the CFL game. Football or American Football as it's known around the world, is not all that well-known and receives little or no exposure outside of North America. Similar case with inter-provincial migration, but not as extreme - people moving to Calgary from places like the Maritimes and Newfoundland have little to no exposure to the CFL at a local level so they have little interest in it even when they move to a CFL city like Calgary. I'm sure many people moving from cities with CFL teams chose to retain their home town alliances instead of adopting the stamps as their favorite team...if they liked the CFL at all to begin with.

They have 3.5 weeks to fix the issue before the Women's Soccer Friendly at the stadium. The Bomber organization said this flooding would not effect the date of that game (May 8). Guess we will find out within a couple weeks if that is true.

Why would the Sun write fairly or deal with the consequences. This is the same chain that gives a voice to the likes of Tom Brodbeck, Michael Coren and Ezra Levant.

I cast a weary eye at all politicians - there is a degree of fabrication amongst all of them. That goes for the PCs and the NDP and I guess the Libs as well although they haven't been relevant since the Carstairs years. But I have to ask you, what scandals involving the PCs are you talking about because the only one that really sticks out in my mind was the vote-rigging scandal in the 1995 election and I have my doubts that Filmon was even aware of it? I'm certainly not aware of any widespread corruption during his tenure. I'm aware of his balanced budgets in the face of decreased transfer payments from the federal government during the belt-tightening 90s and how he passed into law that the province could not have back-to-back years of provincial deficits - a law that was put to pasture by the NDP without any form of discussion a few years ago. And if this province is doing so well and if other provinces would kill to have our hydro, why is the 1% increase in the PST necessary along with the myriad of other tax hikes approved by the NDP the last few years? Good for Lyle I guess. I imagine his career as a football executive is over even is this doen't turn out well for him.

Happy for Charles! He had the ability to make a 5-yard run exciting. Now that I think about it he was voted the league's most exciting player a few times.

This is what happens when you get an architect with no experience designing a stadium. I'm sure if a firm with experience in designing stadiums had designed IGF the number of flaws emerging after construction would be lessened

It 's pretty much proven that Pavs is one of the worst starting goalies in the NHL, if not the worst. This has been discussed ad nauseum on the Jets forum on the Hfboards. Pretty sure I have seen the Unknown Poster post there several times. Garret, one of the more frequent posters on the board, happens to be excellent with advanced stat analysis and has shown time and time again that Pavs is a below average goaltender. While Pavs is a great athlete who can make the occasional great save he is 1) poor at controlling rebounds which lead to subsequent high quality scoring chances 2) very poor stick handling which put additional pressure on the defense and forwards in their own zone to try and clear the puck 3) poor positionally in the net leading to the acrobatic saves fooling people into believing he is a good goaltender and also leading to goals which should have been saved if he was covering the angle properly 4) weak glovehand 5) frequently plays too deep in his net The guy is just fundamentally a poor goaltender relying on athleticism to look better than he is. The one season in Atlanta with the .914 save percentage was a fluke as seen by his three years in Winnipeg in which it appears he has become progressively worse. The bad defense argument in defense of Pavs doesn't wash as teams with worse defense like the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Laffs have goalies with significantly higher save percentages (Miller, Reimer and Bernier). If the Jets had even average goaltending last year (which would be exceptional for pavs) they would have made the playoffs.. Chevy needs to buyout Pavs and/or bring in competition next year and I'm talking about legit competition, not Montoya or one of the goalies currently with the Ice Caps. Someone like Halak or Reimer. There are a few others but I can't think of them right now - will have to take a look at the free agent list. Won't be able to trade Pavs due to the horrible contract unless we trade him for an equally bad contract. Cam Ward's $6+ million contract with 2 years remaining is an example.

Maybe Joe Mack will ask him to come to camp for his current CFL team. Oh, that's right Joe Mack currently doesn't have a CFL team to call his employer! Remember back in 2012 when the Bombers got off to that horrible start and the calls for Joe Mack to be fired became increasingly louder both in the media and on the other Bomber site. And remember when some of the members of that site said no way you should fire Joe Mack. Give him time because if you do fire him some other team is sure to hire him due to his awesome recruitment skills (Bombers have the best depth in the CFL and at QB according to some members back in 2012 - I remember Bluto's signature lol). Well, here we are nearly one year after his firing and not one CFL team has even spoken to Joe Mack let alone hired him. The man was brought in to improve our Qb depth and I think it's safe to say he failed miserably at it. Brink was released and never found a position as a third stringer nevermind a backup with another team and Elliott was only on the BC roster because he paid his way to camp and also because of injuries to BC Qbs higher on the totem pole. We're left with Goltzy - another Mack protege who only proved he could not get better despite numerous starts and was the worst starter/backup in the league out of all 9 teams! Elliott won't get another shot unless 5-10 cfl starters/backups go down simultaneously this season. He is that lowly regarded.

The economic benefit from the Grey Cup should be much more substantial in Manitoba than Sasky, that's for sure. Here we actually have the hotels and venues to accomodate the 10-20,000 out-of-province folk for the Grey Cup week. In Regina, they had room for what? 1000 people tops from out-of-province? In the end, the economic impact from the 2015 Grey Cup week will be similar to that in Regina ($130 million or so), but most of money generated from the Regina Grey Cup came from people already living in the province. It's not as if those people would have just pocketed the money they saved on tickets, souvenirs, food and drinks if the Grey Cup wasn't being held in the province - they would have just spent in other things..like upgrading the toilet seats in their outhouses from pine to oak, buying their cousins roses instead of dandelions, adding grills on their dentures..things like that. In other words, very little new money was added to the Saskatchewan economy regardless of the 2013 Grey Cup. With decent hotel accomodations and superior venues, Manitoba should see a more significant contribution in out-of-province money once the 2015 Grey Cup week is completed.

The Bombers didn't hire the firm who designed the stadium - Creswin/Asper did. Part of the payoff Creswin/Asper received when they were removed from the project was to buy the plans from him. And a poor decision that was!

How is it a good deal exactly?? If the Bombers had gone through the proper process of hiring the proper firm, one with experience in designing stadiums, like the Riders are doing, instead of hiring Asper's buddy Ray Wan (he of no experience in designing stadiums) to design IGF, then they wouldn 't have needed to spend an additional $350,000 to build a proper pressbox - it would have been designed and constructed correctly the first time around. Hiring Ray Wan instead of a real firm with experience like HKS has cost the taxpayers millions of additional dollars when you factor in other mistakes that had to be corrected (like lack of proper access to the field level for concerts). Plus I'm sure there is more to come in the future. Great that we have the big game coming back to Winnipeg. Hope the Convention Centre expansion is completed by then.

his big flaw was not hiring the right coach. Fundamentally his approach was not that dissimilar from Popp or Buono, but he didn't have an all time great coach like Buono who always developed a qb or Calvillo for decades. The guy had the approach that you can replace players which isn't wrong but you need a good teacher and leader at head coach if you're going to do that and he failed spectacularly at that aspect. His bigtime flaw was his inability to get a decent QB or provide the QB with decent protection. The latter goes hand-in-hand with his inability to accumulate good Canadian depth despite being given 4 years to do so. The fact that he didn't even know who Brad Sinopli was shows how little knowledge he had of the CIS. Jade Etienne anyone?

The CFL B List? Then why do you watch? No one is forcing you. Find another sport you can grumble about salaries while calling the CFL bush. Who needs you? Hey the North American Lacrosse League needs fans & they pay their players peanuts so it's right up your alley. Go follow it. Why does acknowledging that the CFL doesn't have the best football players in the world mean he shouldn't watch it? It's not what Atomic said it's how he said it. Big difference. The CFL is the one league in the ******* world that the players are in the community interacting with fans in all kinds of different ways. Most basically play for the love of the game & he's bitching about salaries? And advocating that owners should get tough with the players to the lpoint of shutting down the season in 2014?? Hell, 3 teams DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY OWNERS as they're community owned.... Nope, I don't take back what I said. I know the NFL has better players but at the same time if you are a true fan you appreciate what you have which is still pretty damned good. I don't see how you can possibly get annoyed with the way I talk to you sometimes and then still think you're justified in talking to Atomic the way you did in this string of quotes. He's not exactly saying anything that's untrue. Nor is he saying anything that should be offending you to the point that you're telling him he shouldn't watch the CFL. To a certain extent, a lot of these guys are replaceable. Some of them aren't, but most are. The owners have a good chance to make the league financially stable and while I definitely think that the players deserve their fair share of the new revenue, it shouldn't be an overwhelming amount. What's an overwhelming amount though out of the additional 2.5 or so million in tv revenue?

You need to look a little closer at the numbers. Under the old deal at 15 million per season each team collected 1.8 million. Under the new deal at $40 million each of the 9 teams will collect 4.4 million. That's an increase of 2. 6 million per team so even is the teams raised their cap by a million for 2014 each team to say 5.5 or 5.6 million each team would still be ahead by 1.6 million from the previous season. That should be more than an adequate amount to improve their bottom lines. And what's this about an over-inflated TV contract? Based on what exactly?

There is absolutely no reason the salary cap shouldn't increase by at least $500,000 this season, followed by increases of $150,000 or so each of the following 4 seasons to coincide with the increase in the tv deal. The owners would still see a noticeable increase in their annual revenues thanks to the new tv contract, and that's not even factoring in increased revenues from the new stadiums and improved national sponsorships