A More Perfect Union... on the field

On June 20th, Ottawa and the OSEG were awarded the rights to a new soccer team that would play in the North American Soccer League (NASL) (see news article here). This deal has the potential to provide a MASSIVE boost financially to the next Ottawa CFL team, as Lansdowne field will have two anchor tenants to help share in the maintenance/upkeep costs of the field. Also Frank Clair will have another team to fill it's schedule! Synergy is what they call it in the business world.

I feel this new Ottawa soccer team maybe coming in at the exact right time as well. If the team begins play in 2014 or 2015 that is just around the time Canada is hosting the FIFA women's world cup! The soccer buzz will be going even more insane if the city of Ottawa gets approval to be one of the host cities for this tournament. Whatsmore, Ottawa's bid is increasingly more likely to be accepted due to the fact that Toronto will be unable to host any games due to over committing themselves to the Pan American games that summer!

However, I will be cautiously optimistic with this. The NASL has folded before and just recently got on the go again. Who's to say this league will exist in another couple years... especially if the Montreal Impact (one of the league's better attended teams) plays on moving up to the premier Major League Soccer division by 2012.

Another fact that should be highlight is that the renovated Frank Clair Stadium will hold around 24,000 people in max capacity. So far, attendance for NASL games will not even come close to filling this stadium! This maybe an issue for the "Fan Experience", as the new Frank Clair could just be too BIG a stadium for Ottawa Soccer to survive in.

So for now... though I love soccer (2nd to football), I will wait and see how this partnership develops! It has all the ground workings to be great, let's just hope the NASL is still around for another 3 years.

Fingers crossed!!!

The Meeting

(Jeff Hunt must be getting tired with Friends of Lansdowne)


On Thursday March 24th, the Friends of Lansdowne (FOL) combined forces with the Council of Canadians to riot on the renovations to public space becoming privatized. The meeting largely squared upon the issue of Ottawa City Council giving OSEG the rights to redevelop the park the best way they see fit.

The meeting detailed can be more so followed through this media story.
(click here)


From what I gather a bit more than 100 people showed up to this meeting even though it was open to all the public of Ottawa. Ottawa is a city close to a million people; I feel the FOL should take this as a major hint that the citizens of Ottawa frankly don't care what they're doing. In addition they raised $2000 to help cover their legal expenses. Their Lawyer, and FOL member, is Steven Shrybman. The FOL must be expecting a big discount price off legal fees in the coming months if $2000 is all they can raise for this cause. Lawyers are expensive!!

Remember the MAJOR court date will be happening in June. This is when the courts will decide if the City Council of Ottawa got their decision ethically right when they award the reno project to OSEG.

Their full legal challenge can be seen here

Other than that it was a rather slow news week in terms of CFL in Ottawa stories. Blogging on FOL is becoming a bit boring. Next Sunday I will look into the new CFL expansion draft that is set to occur in 2012!