Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
I am not sure these narratives hold up when you look at the history.
Moncton hosted the 2010 IAAF World Juniors and built a stadium which according to Wikipedia cost $17M.
In 2011, Halifax hosted the Canada Winter Games and built the Canada Games Centre for $45M (the Emera Oval is from the same games). It's no less ambitious than what Moncton hosted.
Neither of these two examples were for or resulted in a CFL team. Both cities have held Touchdown Atlantic although I think Moncton had more issues with ticket sales. And since then Halifax has gotten the Wanderers stadium and CPL team while Moncton did not.
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I'm looking at this through the stadium not facilities lens, after all Moncton built an arena too. And I did say the Moncton stadium wasn't built for the CFL.
Moncton may have issues because they were trying to sell 20k seats instead of 11k like Halifax and Wolfville. Moncton had 20k (2x) 15k and 10k. Halifax had 11k (2x) and 10k.
I'm not sure how either Moncton or Halifax can be lauded or criticized because one of them had an owner step forward. It's not like the city owns the team. And essentially to compare THG to the Moncton stadium is unfair as one is temp bleachers and shipping containers while the other is a permanent structure.
Although I may be non purposely comparing Moncton to Halifax it is really not my intention. I am really trying to say that it seems Halifax has been dragging its feet on this issue. If they choose to spend big money on this it will have to for the community and no longer exclusively the Wanderers. The turf surface will have to be replaced with artificial turf and a bubble will be needed as winter cover so the facility can be used in the 320 days (source Derek Martin) when the Wanderers aren't using it.
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