A long long time ago, in an Ottawa far away, somebody somewhere thought Football in the capital would be a grand idea. It created the Ottawa Rough Riders. In theory, brilliant. In practice, they went bust. They came out with a sequel, and called them the Ottawa Renegades. They, also, went bust. That was 2005 or 2006. flash forward to now, and they’ve decided third time’s a charm. It’s not really a guarantee yet, but they’re pushing for it. And hard. So hard, in fact, that they’ve narrowed their choices for a team name down to 5, neverminding the fact it’s not even a sure fire thing there’ll be a team to name. and I have to wonder why there should be.
Here’s the thing from where I’m sitting. Ottawa’s hockey team’s doing, as much as it pains me to say it, relatively well. Sure, every game’s not necessarily sold out, but when the season starts, it’s Senators this, NHL that, and from day one it’s the countdown to the stanley cup–even if they have this nasty little habbit of puking about 5 miles from it. Ottawa has escentially 2 seasons. Winter, or hockey, and summer, or construction. We had a minor league baseball team here for a few years. Yet, unless you caught the sports segment of the local news station, you wouldn’t know it. They, too, packed up and moved elsewhere a couple years ago. And I don’t know very many people around here anymore who can say they’ve been to a game. Oh, and before Ottawa’s football teams decided to implode, you were hard pressed to find someone who followed them–well, unless you flipped to the sports segment of your local news. Somehow they can string together all kinds of people who’re all for even the least interesting team going. People just can’t get interested on mass in a football team. Not to the extent that one would actually be able to stay in the city. But they keep trying. Eventually, there has to come a point where they decide they’ve sunk enough money into a dead end project, yeah? So when do we get to announce we’ve reached that point? Because I hyonestly can’t help but think there’s a ton of money being thrown at redeveloping Lansdowne Park for not much. although, if football in Ottawa does collapse in on itself again, maybe they can convince the Ex to come back…