Comment 47107

By arienc (registered) | Posted September 02, 2010 at 22:11:06

It seems that everyone's discounted the biggest stakeholder in this issue...Hostco and the Pan Am games. Their primary mission is to make the Games a success. Everything else is secondary to their interests.

The Pan Am games require a venue that makes the most sense from the perspective of the athletes, and their families/guests, etc. Most of these will be centred in the athletes' village in Toronto.

Access to Toronto is thereby a very important factor as far as Hostco is concerned.

Remember, Burlington lost their (much smaller) stadium because we decided to move it away from the GO line.

I suspect that MIP is just as bad, as far as Hostco is concerned. The journey would require two bus rides (or shutttle buses) from the Liuna GO station, at an even greater distance than Burlington had proposed.

I maintain that Hamilton will get zero funding from the federal and provincial governments should the accessibility for the athletes not be there. This pretty much rules out East Mountain AND MIP.

The secondary issue for the provincial and federal governments is that there be an anchor tenant, as it appears with West Harbour. Without the Cats making a major about face (unlikely as i don't think Bob Young will go back on his vow) there will only be enough funding for a 5-7,000 seat stadium - which is unnecessary as far as the city is concerned and untenable as far as the political careers of council goes.

If West Harbour is chosen, Toronto will get the high profile soccer games. The Cats will continue to play at Ivor Wynne until who knows when.

Confederation Park sits very close to a GO line, and requires only the building of a platform which has been announced already. So as far as Hostco is concerned, it's less appealing than West Harbour, but at least acceptable as a venue for major competition.

If Confederation Park is acceptable to the City of Hamilton, that's where the stadium will be. "Mistake by the lake" part 2?

Otherwise, expect the Cats AND Hostco to push for an Aldershot location next. Which is much less likely as Burlington would be unable to come up with nearly the funding Hamilton will.

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