Looks like old stadium not done yet

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Crews work on new Blue Bomber stadium Wednesday afternoon on the campus of the University of Manitoba.

Some time soon, probably in the next couple of days, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will be forced to issue a revised date for when their fans can finally park their butts in the 21-inch-wide seats at the long-awaited Investors Group Field.

In the meantime, here's the scoop.

The previously promised opening date -- the team's 2012 exhibition home game -- will not be played at the $190-million, 33,500-seat facility.

Not that anyone should be surprised, least of all the Bombers' board and executive. This is a project that, over the last year, we have been repeatedly assured was on schedule. It was only in late January the Bombers were compelled to admit to a construction schedule whacked by weather, but even then it doesn't seem they levelled with us.

I don't know who the Bombers thought they'd been fooling all that time. But if part of it was some kind of self-deception because they couldn't bring themselves to think about the mess of dealing with fans who have bought season tickets to a new stadium that won't be ready for the start of the season, reality finally paid them a visit this week.

The way I hear it, the Bomber board got the word Tuesday that, if there were more than two additional days of weather delays, the June exhibition opener can't be played in the new stadium. That left the Bombers' executive with no choice but to make alternate plans. Either play that exhibition game on the road, or do what Bombers CEO Garth Buchko said "there's no chance" of doing, and return to the old stadium until the new one is finished.

It was just a couple of Saturdays ago Buchko publicly restricted his options in a Free Press story.

"We will not play a game in the old stadium. We have a plan and we're sticking to it. We plan to play a pre-season game at Investors Group Field and we'll work with the challenges that result with not having some of the esthetics done."

Oops.

On the same late January day the Bombers' new CEO vowed the new stadium would open for the exhibition game, Premier Greg Selinger chimed in with this thoughts about a construction schedule Buchko said was two to three weeks behind.

"They seem to have a plan to try and make it up. So I think it's too early for anybody to be overly concerned about delays."

Just to put this again in the context of time, both Buchko's promise of an exhibition stadium opener in June, and Selinger's comforting words that all would be well, were reported less than three weeks ago. At that point, there were those in the construction industry, quoted in that same Free Press story, who disputed Buchko's understanding of the project's schedule. The construction insiders estimated the delay at two to three months, not two to three weeks.

In fact, according to a credible source I spoke with in early February, the project had already lost close to 50 days to weather-forced delays since it finally went piledriving into the ground on Jan. 6, 2011.

If Buchko didn't know that, he should have.

We all should have.

This is a construction-schedule saga that was in dire need of some candour -- and transparency -- even before the premier and mayor officially helped dig the hole this project has kept digging for itself.

As for the exhibition game in search of a stadium, I don't know whether they'll choose to play it at the old ballpark or on the road, even though they've already sold season tickets that include the Winnipeg exhibition game. I'm not even sure they know yet what they're going to do, because when I called Bombers media director Darren Cameron Wednesday, asking for a construction update, he asked if it could wait until Friday.

Buchko is out of town, he said.

That left me to try Ossama AbouZeid, the football field's project manager. The woman who takes his calls said he's away this week.

"Vacationing?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

Again, why am I not surprised?

The project was targeted way too tightly, expected to take only 11/2 years from first pile in the gumbo to first kickoff. The project manager on vacation is the same guy who suggested in early January the stadium was on schedule.

And on budget.

We'll see about that.

In the meantime, rest assured the Bombers have managed to do at least one thing right on this project.

They've left the old Winnipeg Stadium standing.

And now we know why.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 16, 2012 B1