About Ottawa's bid to join an imploding soccer league...

(Not to mention that empty ballpark.)

The mud fight between USL team owners and the league's new corporate overlord will chart the course which determines whether pro soccer comes to Ottawa.

There is more than a cute little juxtaposition involved with Jeff Hunt and the Lansdowne Live gang in Ottawa applying for a franchise in the United Soccer Leagues First Division on the day after several of the league's owners all but declared civil war on USL-1's corporate ownership (and on the day before city council holds a huge meeting to discuss Lansdowne Live's proposal for the derelict stadium).

You could read into that the Ottawa is trying to get into a league several current owners are trying to get out of, but that would just be negative and bitchy. Also worth noting high up is that deep-down, the gut feeling is Hunt wants a USL team in Ottawa and it's not a smoke screen.

First, the mud fight: Several owners, including those of the Montreal and Vancouver teams, have drawn a line in the stand about their desire for "a team-owner controlled league" after Nike sold its controlling stake last week. To put it mildly, it's an interesting variable to throw into the equation. Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo is also apparently interested in getting the Trois-Rivières Attak into USL-1 if his team leaves the league for MLS.

It wouldn't necessarily hurt the Hunt bid, which is in partnership with John Pugh's grass-roots Ottawa Fury. It will affect it if it turns out the map of pro soccer in "northern North America" is about to get redrawn. It also seemed to be an underplayed element in the initial wave of hometown coverage from Ottawa Business Journal, CBC.ca and Sun Media.

This is not a commentary on the Ottawa bid or Lansdowne Live's motives. It is definitely politic to create the impression with an ever-skeptical public and city council that the stadium is going to be used for more than a CFL team and retail. Hunt's release mentions having the CFL, pro soccer and two university football teams all sharing the stadium, which sounds very promising, but also very busy.

It is a positive to have tapped into Pugh's sweat equity and expertise (although it could have been done 10 months ago). At least Hunt, et al., got the right idea eventually. Your guess is as good as any why this apparently never occurred, far as was reported, to Senators owner Eugene Melnyk.

Meantime, please keep in mind Ottawa still has another stadium dilemma with the ballpark on Coventry Rd., which is going unused. One does idly wonder if Hunt is playing coy and plotting perhaps putting a soccer team at that stadium. That way, they have a hand in control of two venues and keep someone else from developing it as a concert venue.

Triple-A baseball stadiums in Portland, Oregon and San Juan, Puerto Rico, have proven adequate for pro soccer (imagine the first-base line as one sideline, with the third-baseline as one end line), with temporary bleachers out in deep left field). That is a valuable asset the city of Ottawa is not using. The Coventry Rd. stadium could also be used by the W-League Fury and the various youth teams. Far-fetched, I know. Maybe the other site ends up as condos.

Baseball is still in the picture, of course, but the goal is to get a stable tenant using that stadium. If you're a taxpayer, the sport can be named later.

Meantime, good on Hunt and Pugh et al. One would hope the USL's issues don't undermine their goal of attracting a pro soccer team, in any reputable league.

Ottawa stadium debate: Hunt talks USL

It sounds like the USL is on a par with the calibre of the MLS and if things don't work out in Kanata, it might be worth looking into. It certainly represents a way to test the waters of professional soccer in Ottawa at much less risk.

That's Jeff Hunt of Ottawa's CFL bid. Putting aside his absurd assertion that USL-1 is the same calibre as MLS (yes USL-1 fans, it's absurd. The soccer is fine, but it isn't on par with a league that spends roughly four times as much money on salaries), it is the first time that someone from that side of the stadium debate in Ottawa has actually articulated the USL-1 idea. It's been hinted at before, but no one has ever come out and said it.

Clearly MLS is the best option for Canadian soccer. And it would work in Ottawa. It would work in any Canadian city. The country is ready to embrace the sport at the club level. But, if MLS isn't an option another USL-1 team is (literally) the next best thing.

Soccer fans in the capital need to keep the pressure on Hunt et al. to live up to this promise if they win the day on April 22.

The win-loss stat provided in the linked article is misleading because it fails to take into consideration the squad rotation that most MLS teams use when playing USL-1 teams. Essentially, they play the scrubs against a team that is geared up to prove something. When it's best on best, USL wins teams over MLS teams are rare. If you look at the U.S. Open Cup competition (the only competition where the two leagues have met over a long enough period to gauge anything) you'll find that in the semi-finals or later (when MLS starts to take it seriously) of that tournament the USL has not won a game against MLS competition since 1999.

Famously Montreal won the Canadian championship last year against a weak TFC team. However, it is worth pointing out that they did so without actually defeating Toronto and it was Vancouver's win over TFC on Canada Day (combined with Montreal's mastery of Vancouver in the tournament) that handed the championship to the Impact. And the 'Caps win over Toronto was a case of a goaltender standing on his head during a second half onslaught by Toronto. The point being that, yes, upsets happen, but that it's unlikely that it will be a trend. MLS pays roughly four times more salary than USL-1 does. Clearly it's a better league. There is no debate here -- other than by USL-1 partisans in Canada that are as much influenced by wanting to knock big, bad Toronto down a notch than by the cold logic of the situation.

This isn't to say that USL wouldn't be a good fit in Ottawa. In many ways it does make more sense. MLS would have a better chance of capturing the imagination of the city than a league that is clearly minor league.

Related:
Getting their balls in a row; The stadium battle could be shaping up to include a faceoff between competing soccer leagues (Chris Stevenson, Sun Media)
Lansdowne doesn’t need a stadium, mayor says; O'Brien suggests updating Civic Centre, dealing with football/soccer issue separately (Mohamed Adam, Ottawa Citizen)
New plan combines soccer, football (Randall Denley, Ottawa Citizen)

(Cross-posted to The 24th Minute).

Ottawa's stadium debate: Hunt takes it to a new low

"Given they're joined at the hip, the problem extends to the Civic Centre. The 67's are in serious jeopardy if the city makes the decision to build an outdoor stadium somewhere (other than Lansdowne Park)"

And with that flip and manipulative statement any sympathy this author had with the CFL bid in Ottawa went out the window. Jeff Hunt is going down the route that so many crass, mostly American, owners have done in the past. He wants his tax payer funded castle and if he doesn't get it he's going to take his toy and play with it somewhere else.

The 67's in jeopardy? Please. Where, exactly, is he going to move the team? Cornwall? North Bay? There is no place you could move Ottawa's junior hockey franchise that will provide Hunt with a better opportunity to be profitable. Ottawa, along with London and Kitchener, is the best market in the OHL. If Hunt actually moved the team from the capital he'd be, well, an idiot.

But, he knows damn well that playing the hockey card might just be enough to sway public opinion. Playing with the emotions of the diehard junior puckheads may be cynical and obscene, but it might just work.

Hunt built his reputation in Ottawa as the owner of the 67's. For him to even so much as suggested that there is a possibility that the team could move if he doesn't get his way with the CFL proposal is pretty damn low. I would have thought that he was better that that. Sadly, I guess I'm wrong.

Here's an idea. If Hunt wants to show that the CFL is a better bet than MLS in Ottawa then how about he do that? Demonstrate why Ottawa would benefit more from football than soccer and how the CFL bid is better for the people of the capital region.

Don't threaten to move their junior hockey team.

MLS in Ottawa: Eunibomber drops the big one

The race to get to the trough is on and we'll see who finishes first.

"Eugene Melnyk's company, Senators Sports and Entertainment, wants to build on to its existing recreation hub — Scotiabank Place and the Sensplex nearby — by seeing the city build a stadium that would house a Major League Soccer franchise, creating an 'entertainment village' that would attract something in the order of four million visits a year." — Ottawa Citizen

Please bear in mind that just because Mr. Eugene says he's going to do it doesn't mean it will happen. Never, ever underestimate the incompetence and foot-dragging of Ottawa city council.

It is understandable if people see this is a body blow to the Lansdowne Live! plan, especially since Roger Shenkman, John Ruddy, et al., could end up cutting friendly neighbourhood frontman Jeff Hunt out of the picture to get a piece of action. Don't be so hasty; Duane and others on It's Called Football (you can access it through The 24th Minute) pointed out that MLS commish Don Garber tends to praise every potential expansion city to the skies, and the local media in each city tend not to notice the "pillow whispers" (Ben Knight's term) he's giving to each of the other cities.

The ballpark village is, in good friend Pete Toms' phrase, is "all the rage" in the U.S., since it is a way to dress up the fact that sports magnates are sucking at the public teat. Pete wrote an extensive piece, "When Stadium Financing and the Recession Collide" (The Biz of Baseball, Jan. 20) that covered the subject very thoroughly.

There is a huge scramble on, especially since the federal governments in both the Canada and U.S. are ready to throw money at projects which are, wait for it, "shovel ready." Melnyk can also sell this as part of Canada's push to host the 2015 Women's World Cup, a point which seems to have sailed past a lot of people, with Duane as a notable excpetion.

Please keep in mind that a lot of these stadium village projects are having trouble taking form. That's a big unacknowledged part of this story. The Wiki for the ballpark village in St. Louis next to the current Cardinals baseball stadium refers to it as "a big embarrassing turd right in the middle of the city." (It will probably get more attention this summer when the Cardinals host the baseball all-star game.)

Oakland Athletics owner Lew Wolff "heard crickets" (Examiner, Feb. 14) when he pitched a ballpark village for Fremont, California. (Wolff might have switched his sights to San Jose, where he owns , wait for it, a MLS team. Another proposed for Arlington, Texas has never got off the ground.

Beyond that, anyone who wants to build one of these has to have financing. They need tenants for any retail development. They also need developers willing to build homes in the area.

The bottom line is you cannot predict where this is headed, especially considering the rot of incumbency that permeates Ottawa city council (how are you coming along with light rail, everyone?).

In the short term, it means that two of Ottawa's irreplaceable amateur sports institutions, the Hunt's 67s in the OHL and the Ottawa Gee-Gees in CIS football, are in a bit of flux. However, and this is just coming from an outsider, it seems like Ottawa has had a blind spot with this for a good 15, 20 years, and it's caught up to them. A lot of people want something new.

The irony is original Senators owner Bruce Firestone, Cyril Leeder and co. wanted to do this two decades ago out in Kanata; they had projections of "profits that would scrape the sky," and everyone doubted them. It seems like were information rich, but cash poor.

(Incidentally, Duane pointed out the B.C. Place project for footy is a "disaster," which runs counter to what the Paper of Record said last Saturday.)

Related:
Melnyk plans ‘entertainment village’; Project would include offices, restaurants, bars, apartments, hotels for area near Senators’ arena (Patrick Dare, Ottawa Citizen)

Lansdowne Park: Hunting down the real prize

A good prop bet: Ottawa will sort out what to do with Lansdowne Park about the same time it gets light rail.

The word "cronyism" was getting bandied about in some comment senctions in response to the news Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien is considering only one proposal for the historic downtown site. Who knows where this is headed, but one prevailing sentiment is that the Ottawa Third-And-Longs cannot be the big carrot for the moneybagses, including Jeff Hunt, whom one might argue is sort of putting a populist face on the business elites' plans for the site (hey, if the end justifies the means, nothing wrong with that). It should not take such a production to get a Canadian Football League team back in Ottawa, and that, far as this cowboy is concerned, doesn't inspire much optimism about getting the league back.

Maybe they will figure it out, but by the time this city has, global warming will have made it possible to skimboard on Dow's Lake in December.

Related:
Doucet backs down on Lansdowne Park: City will not reopen design competition while it considers Jeff Hunt proposal (Ottawa Sun)
City of Ottawa to review CFL Lansdowne proposal, won't seek others (CBC.ca)

Lansdowne Live: Developers Shenk one; or, this dog-and-pony show won't Hunt

The pro sports scene in Ottawa could turn Norman Vincent Peale into a cynic.

Dated references are called for after watching the Lansdowne Live, so-called, press conference. It was like walking into a time warp, right down to the knob from Heritage Ottawa asking about the stupid cattle castle that should have been torn down long ago. It was very hard to watch without coming away feeling like nothing will get done with the site any time soon. Roger Greenberg (gotta be careful here, I rent from Minto!) more or less had to backtrack and say, "This is more of a concept plan."

It sucks to be anyone who thought they were getting decisive action or anything new. This was a first draft.

The upshot is that if you go by historical significance, the site has been for pro sports. It's one way to honour history (and a few business portfolios). Given today's gong show, it would not be surprising if this ends with the city throwing up its hands and saying that is how it has to be. (That's how Kingston got the K-Rock Centre, people!)

It just probably won't happen in time for the 2010 CFL season, as good friend Pete Toms predicted during a chat some time ago.

It would feel wrong to cross over the bridge and see condominiums and stores selling crap that no one needs. It would be a selling-off of a shared heritage, and that is important, although not as important as the knob from Heritage Ottawa would have you believe. Greenspace is good, but it's also prime real estate in the centre of the city. Money talks and leftie lingo walks, so that's not happening. It would amount to cutting a hole in the city's pocket at a time when it's having trouble paying for snow removal.

The main point is that today probably did not do much to sway anyone in either direction, and that's sad. That's too bad, because it sucks to feel like a jerk for just seeing this as more business-as-usual.

This is coming from someone who would love to watch a CFL game -- and to borrow one add-on from today, "perhaps pro soccer, too!" -- here at some point before he moves on to his next city. Suffice to say, to Roger Greenberg, Jeff Hunt, John Ruddy and Bill Shenkman, you are each more brilliant and successful than I will ever be, and it's fair bet none of you ended up spending Thanksgiving alone. Gentleman, though, you're going to have to do a lot better than you did today if there will ever be another CFL team -- "and perhaps, pro soccer too!" playing in this city.

Anyway, the rest is all bullet-pointed:

• As you can guess, the MLS was an afterthought, save for Hunt telling Rogers 22 that you couldn't put a stadium on the "outskirts" of town. There were two Roughriders football helmets on the table and one artist's conception of the stadium not-so-subtly included a soccer ball in the middle of the field. They didn't come off as credible when talking about soccer, though. No one spoke from the Ottawa Fury, which a lot more in touch with soccer at the grass roots. That's simply a gut feeling.
  
  There was a mention that the Gatineau entry in a new Quebec semi-pro league (eye-roll) would be interested in playing there. Where was the Fury, though?
  
  
• Ottawa city councillor Clive Doucet, whatever you think of his politics, killed it. He told Rogers 22, "It's the tail wagging the dog. Good for them, but they're sharks and I don't want to be eaten." ... "It's not an urban oasis, it's a big-business vision."
  
  The man gives good sound-bite.
  
  
• Hunt claimed that there is a "correlation between world-class stadiums and the success of the teams who play in them." Two words: "PNC Park." Or "Safeco Field."
  
  Between the Boston Red Sox (96-year-old stadium), Tampa Bay Rays (whose stadium is a dump), Super Bowl champion New York Giants (stadium opened 1975), last season's Stanley Cup finalists, the Detroit Red Wings (arena opened 1979) and Pittsburgh Penguins (1961), teams in aging stadia seem to do OK. There doesn't seem to be a strong cause-and-effect.
  
  
• One of the Glebeites asked why the developers just don't buy the stadium. Two minutes of Wiki'ing answered that question -- there are no privately owned stadiums in the CFL. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, a community-owned team, own their stadium. The Toronto Argonauts rent Rogers Centre. The other six are all government- or university-owned. Ottawa cannot come back into the league under such a financial burden, even though the CFL supposedly has a salary cap.

Sorry, but it's just been a frustrating couple of hours. To CFL commish Mark Cohon, here's hoping you're calling Halifax, Moncton and Quebec City right now, to tell them to get a move on.

BEER BARON BACK IN THE CFL GAME?

Jeff Hunt has never given Ottawa's sports fans a reason to question his judgement during the decade he's owned junior hockey's 67's.

Hunt hasn't. Please don't get your rapidly disintegrating pair of Rough Riders boxer shorts in a knot over this news: The Sun's Don Brennan has a column today detailing how Hunt and Frank D'Angelo -- the one and only -- have "very informally chatted" about working together to land Ottawa CFL Team Version 3.0.

Bill (Jesse's Dad) Palmer's group is the only one negotiating with the CFL and if that should change to let Hunt-D'Angelo or anyone else in, so much the better. In the abstract, there should be two bid groups competing to present the best business model to the CFL's board of governors. Of course, the CFL will simply go, "Whatever," and hand the team to whoever is willing to pay the most exorbitant franchise fee and agree to the least favourable terms for the expansion draft, but that's neither here nor there. (Hey, don't knock it. That kind of forward thinking got Ottawa into the NHL and stuck Hamilton with the Almost Hockey League.)

Everything looks to be on the up and up here. At the same time, had to laugh a bit when Hunt said, "Now, whether Frank would get Ben Johnson to do another commercial, I don't know."

(He did. The second one was halfway funny as crass exploitation goes.) At this writing 74% of respondents to an ottawasun.com poll say they would support football in Ottawa in Hunt partnered with D'Angelo. Of course, that's open-ended (maybe people would go to more Gee-Gees games) and it's down from the 79-80% (if memory serves) who responded "yes" to a poll last summer asking if they would support football in Ottawa if Hunt was involved. Granted, that poll was taken during the CFL season, when the issue was fresher in people's minds. The support is still there.

Bottom line: People want to believe the CFL can thrive here again, but many would like to know as much as possible about the spiritual and financial leaders before committing. If Hunt and the public believe D'Angelo messing with the little guys of the local media
and massacring Canuck rock classics is part and parcel of a means to that end, so be it. Some reserve the right to be wary.

The desire for the people in Ottawa-Gatineau want is good football from June to November, as free of farce as is possible, given that it's the CFL. Is that so much to ask?

DIGRESSIONS

By the way, whoever put that unflattering nickname up with that YouTube clip should have the grace to withdraw it, since Frank is performing out of charity, and so are the people listening to him. As an aside, isn't it funny that the descriptive "beer baron" is now being universally applied to D'Angelo? You would think he would man up and thank the guy who started that.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.