MONCTON, N.B. Brent Scrimshaw was working for the Canadian Football League when it made its first foray into the Maritimes, part of the reconnaissance team that ultimately selected Nova Scotia as the site for an exhibition game between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Toronto Argonauts in 2005.But it was Moncton, N.B., that really caught his eye — so much so that he quit his Toronto-based job and uprooted his family to take up life on the East Coast.
“Over the few weeks I spent here, I thought it was a pretty neat place,” Scrimshaw said. “I fell in love with the city and the people.”
Now the co-chair of the Touchdown Atlantic committee, Scrimshaw has been instrumental in bringing a regular-season game to this community of just over 125,000 for the second straight season. This year’s matchup features the the Ticats taking on the Calgary Stampeders this Sunday.
The importance of this game to the community is evident, quite literally everywhere. From Kevin Glenn posters in the Moncton airport to murals painted on buildings along the busy Main Street, the city has been turned into CFL central for the week. There are a slew of scheduled events, including a street festival, a sold-out golf tournament, a Calgary-style pancake breakfast and even a Tiger-Town.
Claude Leblanc is a Canada Post mail carrier who took a week’s holiday to volunteer for the event, shuttling league big-wigs, corporate sponsors and team officials across the city.
Leblanc describes himself as an ardent football fan but says his wife’s experience is probably more indicative of the impact the game can have.
“My wife wasn’t a football fan but, after the game last year, now she is,” said the 56-year-old. “It gave her the chance to see how fun the CFL really is.”
“As we grow, we want to make sure we expand the fan base in Atlantic Canada,” Cohon said Thursday. “But it’s also part of a long-term test: As the league gets financially stronger, could we support a 10th franchise?”
While the city has embraced the game as a once a year phenomenon, whether the level of fan and corporate support exists for a permanent franchise remains an open question. It’s worth noting that, after selling out all 22,000 seats for last year’s game, tickets are still available for Sunday’s contest.
Part of the issue may be the facility itself. The stadium at the University of Moncton normally seats 10,000 with temporary seating making up the rest. Unfortunately, all of those seats are in the two end-zones where sight lines are less agreeable.
“If there’s a stadium that will eventually be CFL ready, if there’s enough corporate support beyond the national sponsors and if there’s a fan base that will support 10 games, the question becomes what are the ownership possibilities,” Cohon said. “Is it an individual, a group of businesses or is it a community-owned team?”
The next step in the Maritime courtship with the league may very well come via the Ticats once again. Moncton organizers have said they would like to host multiple games in 2013, when the Ticats are expected to be looking for a temporary home — or more likely homes, plural — while the new stadium is built on the current Ivor Wynne site.
“The first and most important thing with the Tiger-Cats is making sure there’s enough home games in the region to satiate the appetite of true Ticat fans in Hamilton,” Cohon said. “But it’s something we would consider because it would be an interesting test to determine whether the appetite was there to fill a stadium two or three times.”
Scrimshaw acknowledges there are significant hurdles to CFL ownership in every major East Coast city, but has no doubt the desire is there.
“That’s the dream of all Monctonians and in fact all Maritimers, to get a team here permanently,” Scrimshaw said. “It completes it for the league but it also makes the country whole.”
Leblanc says he’d be more than happy to pony up for season tickets if a franchise made Moncton its permanent home, but, in the meantime, he’s supporting the Black and Gold this weekend.
Scrimshaw says he’s never questioned leaving southern Ontario behind for the Maritimes, he’s just hoping he can bring one more thing with him:
“I’ve been all over this country, but I’ve never seen a city with the spirit of this one,” Scrimshaw says. “You’ll see over the next couple of days how the city rallies around this thing.”
How many teams are in the league? And one owner props up two of them. If it wasn't for senator Braley the league would have gone bust years ago. Not only does he own two of the teams, but he use to own a third. It should really be renamed the TSN-Braley League. Those are the two groups keeping it afloat. I can understand why the league would add another team.
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