National Post Live Stadium Chat with Bob Bratina

The National Post is apparently hosting a live chat about the new stadium with Mayor Bob Bratina Tuesday at noon. The mayor is starting to look pretty isolated from council and is only a single vote. Should be interesting nevertheless.

Ticats to Burlington?

According to this Spec article, the Cats have been talking to Burlington about a possible site in Aldershot (the Cats have bandied this site about earlier). It is near the GO station, plus obviously well situated near highways. If you're coming from the Mountain via public transportation, not so hot.

At first glance, this deal seems like a longshot (like the CP site) where everything would have to go right to proceed. First Burlington would have to put in money to make it happen (Hamilton was going to contribute $45 million from the future fund, money I don't think Burlington has just lying around) and considering the current slate of politicians were elected after the pier debacle, I don't see the citizens of Burlington being very happy about it. Plus the deal would be contingent on the new site getting all the federal and provincial money earmarked for a Hamilton site. I find it difficult to believe that a Liberal premier would allow such a large chunk of money to go to a long time PC city and in the process possibly piss off a far larger city with seats potentially in play in the October election.

Bratina is quoted in this CP article about the situation. Here's one of the comments from user FS5513:

"If Bob Young wants to foot the bill the Ticats can go wherever they want but don't ask me as a Burlington taxpayer to pick up the tab for yet another foolish project in our city."

What Does Hamilton's Election Mean for the Ticats?

Well Bratina won, which pretty much confuses things. Bratina came out relatively early against the West Harbour and thus a plan for fixing up a brownfield in his own ward. After the East Mountain deal hit the skids, Bratina came out for West Harbour in dramatic fashion, removing his jacket to show a West Harbour Tshirt at a rally at Hess Village. Now it seems he wants Confederation Park, probably the worst site for HSR public transit back as a site for the Pan Am stadium. Since he's only one vote on council, that seems unlikely. Who knows what will happen with the CP Rail site with Bob as mayor. Besides the stadium issue, one would assume that Bratina will be relatively Ticat friendly.

The other result of interest was Jason Farr, radio guy, Cable 14 guy and Ticat announcer winning the Ward 2 race slightly ahead of local activist Matt Jelly. I've heard that Farr was involved with the Go East Mountain rally for the East Mountain site, which frankly perplexes me as to how he got elected as councillor for Ward 2. As a Ticat fan and Ward 2 resident who's interested in getting the brownfields in the ward cleaned up, someone running who was for the Cats moving far away from the downtown and building on a greenfield doesn't seem like a viable candidate. But Hamilton has a long, sad history of electing media types so perhaps that's the explanation. Besides the stadium, one would have to expect Farr to be very friendly to the Ticats, based on past behaviour and employment as opposed to a candidate like Matt Jelly. It will be interesting to see if he continues as the stadium announcer after council is sworn in, in December.

With regards to what's next for the stadium, who knows. Although if there was any flicker of hope for West Harbour, that's done now.

Dunnigan Trafalis Man Crush Watch

In a hopefully continuing feature, Tigercatatonia documents the man crush TSN commentator Matt Dunnigan has on Ticat third string quarterback Adam Trafralis.

"Hamilton in 2009; it was Quinton Porter, Kevin Glenn and Adam Tafralis. In 2010, things changed slightly to look like this - Glenn, Porter and Tafralis, and I would not be surprised to see Tafralis leap frog Porter by the end of the year. That's just me folks, but I'm just saying."

The corollary is of course, Dunnigan's dislike for Porter. Which brings up a potential question, what happens Glennwise if the Cats lose the next two games against Montreal and Saskatchewan on the road? The Cats are nine point underdogs currently on the road against the Alouettes which seems perhaps a bit high. Depends on how Glenn plays one would think.

Here's a good story in the Spec by columnist Paul Wilson on the stadium site issue. I still think that council will end up going with East Mountain site. It is tough for the West Harbour site when the ward councilor Bob Bratina is himself against the location plus all the suburban councilor votes. I'm glad to see people speaking up and getting organized against the East Mountain site, but as I said, getting the councilors to go against Bob Young's $15 million will be difficult.