Raise the Hammer

An opinion piece by Andrew Dreschel titled "Read CEO's lips: No deadline extensions. Period" in the print and online versions of the Hamilton Spectator today contains the following quote from Toronto 2015 CEO Ian Troop:

"Our partner is Hamilton; our funding is attributed to a stadium that was supposed to be built; our money is not targeted to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats."

So far, so good.

However, Dreschel states:

"Mercifully, this should all come to a head Jan 12, when Hamilton council meets to either ratify or reverse its decision not to study Confederation Park."

And Dreschel later states:

"The game is all but over, folks.

Once Hamilton throws in the towel, Hostco will choose between Brampton, Markham and Mississauga as the home for a community stadium no larger than 6,500 seats. Troop says the winner will be announced in the third or fourth week of January."

Dreschel's opinion piece is puzzling in two ways.

First, he does not mention the possible option of a scalable 6,500 seat west harbour Pan Am stadium. Surely Mayor Bratina and Hamilton city council won't "throw in the towel" without a motion to consider and vote on the scalable stadium option. Or will they?

Second, either Dreschel has made a typo in his article or Hostco will actually be announcing the stadium winning city one to two weeks before the February 1st deadline.

Here is the link to Dreschel's opinion piece: http://www.thespec.com/news/local/articl...

Hopefully, there will be two Hamilton city councillors willing to move and second a motion on January 12th to consider submitting the scalable west harbour Pan Am stadium option to Hostco prior to the February 1st deadline. And, unless Dreschel made a typo in his article, the City of Hamilton needs to submit the scalable stadium option to Hostco as soon as possible after the January 12th city council meeting to have a chance of Hostco announcing it as the stadium winning city in the third or fourth week of January.

Comment edited by RenaissanceWatcher on 2011-01-07 08:31:44