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Best to use old stadium for entire season?

By: Doug Brown

Posted: 05/15/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Now that we know when the new stadium could be finished, the next question is when should it be opened?

A short while ago we learned that the earliest Investors Group Field will be ready for a game is Sept. 9. On that day, when the annual migration of denim overalls, false teeth, and jalopies make their way into Manitoba, the 2012 CFL season will be half over.

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If the stadium is finished when expected, it will open on Sept. 21. At that point there will be seven games left in the regular season, and only four home games (and hopefully a home playoff game). If it is late again, well, you do the math: "Welcome to Investors Group Field, remember to renew your season tickets before you leave!" Nothing like opening the province's most interactive present to have to put it back in the box and on the shelf for another six months.

So at what point, and at what date, does the urgency to open the new barn take away from the experience and historic occasion of the moment, and the powers that be concede that, "This is gonna be one doozy of a ballpark for 2013!"

Do not misinterpret my sentiments. I'm as anxious as you are to visit, explore, cheer, and bark out some commentary with "the voice," as the team begins a new era of Blue and Gold football in what will be the finest vessel the CFL has to offer.

Nobody wants to ask this question, because it kills the excitement and momentum of this long awaited and overdue project being finished, but at what point do the think tanks switch gears and say that it just is not going to be possible in 2012, with all the pomp, flair, and circumstance we hoped for? What is the, "It's not really worth rushing it any more date?" The, "one too many delays deadline?"

I know what you're thinking. The B.C. Lions played some of the 2010 season and a big chunk of the 2011 season in their erector set temporary stadium, transitioned to the world's most expensive sunroof, lit the league on fire, and won a Grey Cup in 2011 at our expense. Trust me, it's not the same.

First and foremost, there is no Grey Cup being played here for the time being, and therefore no absolute urgency for 2012. Secondly, BC place was not a new stadium. It was a new roof, with some new seats, and a coat of paint slapped everywhere else. Other than figuring out how to toggle the "open" and "close" button for the ragtop, they already knew how the rest of the place worked.

Investors Group Field will be unlike anything anyone has seen before. I can only imagine how thick the instruction manual must be for the new jumbotrons, let alone the rest of the gizmos that come with it.

The team won't be having training camp at Investors Group Field. It is quite likely the 2012 Bomber football team will have exactly three practices more experience on their new field than the expected first visitor, the Hamilton Tiger Cats. It is possible the players will still be arguing and jockeying over who gets what locker where, and why does the offence get the better meeting rooms when the defenders of Swaggerville have carried the franchise for four years?

And that is just on the football operations side. I can't even begin to imagine the migraine it must be for the business side to contemplate half a season in one stadium, and then transition across town to another. Are they all being cloned, or is the staff being doubled? How grand can a grand opening be if it is rushed, fragmented, or late? How much smoother would the new barn run if the franchise had all off-season to figure it out and a pre-season game for a test run?

The team is having training camp at Canad Inns stadium in a couple of weeks. The team is playing a pre-season game and a minimum of half their home games where they have played them the last 60 years. Why disrupt, interrupt, and move a season somewhere new when the year is more than half done? Especially when even the loan's repayment schedule -- part of the impetus to hurry up and relocate for the additional revenue -- is already kicked back a year to accommodate a late arrival?

I sincerely hope from this point on, everything falls into place and the rest of the stadium goes up like my very first Lego set. But if that can't and doesn't happen, and hasn't happened, how many games is it worthwhile to cram a monumental occasion into the 2012 season for?

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 15, 2012 D2

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