Hamilton Whatsits

This is pretty much a Ticats blog, although I will occasionally touch on some other Hamilton sports issues as it gives me something to write about. Right now in Cat land, there's not much to comment on except for the fact that Corey Mace will probably come to camp. His agent may say he has other NFL teams interested in him, but I think that's some typical agent bullshit. Who's interested in a castoff from the Bills practice roster?

Anyways, in my last post, I mentioned Jim Balsillie's bid for the Phoenix Coyotes, which if successful would likely bring the team at least initially to Copps for a few years. Certainly MLSE will not want this, although if the writings on the wall and a team is coming to Southern Ontario, Copps may be their preference. A new stadium in Vaughn would siphon off concerts from the Air Crapada centre (I fly to Europe all the time on our so called flag carrier and believe me, it honks, especially the geriatric flight attendants and their ability to lose my luggage for days at a time) and thus profitablity. Copps already exists and siphons off some concerts already and isn't going away in any case. Plus a team in Vaughn probably would draw more fans from the overall Toronto area (similar to the Mets), whereas a Hamilton team would become be much more popular west and south of Oakville. I do fear Balsillie building a new stadium somewhere "central", like in Cambridge near the 401, surrounded by parking lots and inaccessable by public transit (hello Orchard Park!).

What would this mean to the Cats? Probably a good thing. Downtown would probably improve to a certain extent, especially Jackson Square which is already slowly improving from its nadir. It probably wouldn't draw that much away from the money spent on the Cats for season tickets because a lot of money would be coming outside Hamilton. Plus the cost of a Cats season ticket is pretty minimal compared to that of the NHL. Mainly corporate money, while the Cats is more broadly based. Easy for me to say, but the CFL does reasonably well in other Canadian places.

Still working on the road draw statistics. Half way there.