Premier confirms regular season game will be played in Moncton next year

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By Brent Mazerolle
Times & Transcript Staff

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It's not just talk anymore, it's official.

The Canadian Football League will hold one of next year's regular season games at the City of Moncton's Stade Moncton 2010 Stadium on the Université de Moncton campus.

Premier Shawn Graham and Moncton East MLA Chris Collins confirmed yesterday that a contract was indeed signed with the CFL last week, although they said which teams will play, the precise date, and the terms of the contract are all details that will only come when a formal announcement is made.

That should come in the next couple of weeks, when all involved can gather in Moncton.

What is known is the deal comes about largely because the provincial and federal governments have agreed to a plan that will see the 10,000-seat stadium being built to host the IAAF Moncton World Junior Track and Field Championships double its capacity to 20,000 for the game.

As for the game itself, "it's going to be the event of the fall," the premier promised. "It's truly going to position Moncton as the entertainment centre of Atlantic Canada."

He expressed confidence that the same enthusiasm for football seen in western Canada will build here on the east coast, with Moncton's central location making the game a regional event.

The regional benefits of the event is what got the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency involved.

"I feel the vision of Peter MacKay (the minister responsible for ACOA) was exemplary," the premier said late yesterday. "I want to give credit where credit is due. He and I had many phone calls on this."

With talk already circulating about building a whole weekend of events around the game, Collins, the provincial government's lead on the file, said the fact that the game would be televised "will be terrific for Moncton's profile, with 20,000 people in a brand new, full stadium."

And relatively speaking, it will be happening shortly after the city hosts the world -- and the international media -- in the same stadium for the IAAF World Junior Track and Field Championships next July. "We'll be reminding people from across Canada that Moncton is a centre for hosting large events," he said. "It's great for football, and it's great for Moncton."

As for the long-discussed idea of making the game an annual event, or even bringing a franchise to the city some day, "this is the ultimate test market," Collins said. "After a multi-year contract, who knows?"

In the meantime, he credited the league's governors for the vision in their decision. By deciding to play a regular season game and possibly more here in Atlantic Canada, "this positions the CFL as the only professional sports league in the country that is truly coast to coast."

He also took on the naysayers who argue football is not enough a part of the culture here for long-term CFL success. He said that's just not so, especially in Metro Moncton, but also in the region at large. Noting how more of the men of his generation who grew up in Moncton played in the CFL than the NHL, Collins noted organized football has a long history in the community.

Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc welcomed the news from the province yesterday.

"We've been working on this for a long time," he said. Indeed, it was five-and-a-half years ago that Moncton North MLA Mike Murphy began championing the idea of the CFL in Moncton.

While the talk from the city hosting a franchise has been refined into a one-step-at-a-time pursuit of hosting other city's teams for games for now, the talk of professional football in Moncton has continued through changes of CFL commissioners, of provincial governments, and City of Moncton administrations. (It should be noted there were even discussions of a CFL franchise during the mayoralty of George Rideout in the 1980s).

The differences between the Moncton of the 1980s and the Metro Moncton of today are obvious, but there's also been one huge difference between the time of Mike Murphy's initial musings and today.

That's the City of Moncton's soon-to-be-completed stadium, which was just a blurry line pencilled in the city's capital works projections back in 2004. Now thanks to the city's landing of the 2010 track and field championships, that little line has grown into a reality much bigger.

While the 2010 IAAF games will be a massive event for southeastern New Brunswick in every way, filling the stadium for a CFL game some weeks later will mark the beginning of what comes after for the life of the stadium. With the ability to expand the stadium to 20,000 seats for everything from a football game to a big name concert to even a Billy Graham Crusade, the stadium is poised to become a key stop for events of all kinds.

Asked if he had any doubt a CFL regular season game could fill the stadium with 20,000 smiling people, Mayor LeBlanc expressed confidence in the city's ability to draw from the whole region. He also promised, "one of those smiling people will be me."

Chris Collins said because there are maximums in the league's ticket pricing structure, he expects the game, "will be very affordable for the whole family."

Collins, whose riding includes the stadium, says he's been taking part in the pursuit of the CFL since the site of the stadium was in the ward he served as a Moncton city councillor. After all these years, he pronounced himself ecstatic at the news.

"Mike Murphy started with this idea, did a lateral when he got busy with his cabinet portfolios, and we ran with it. Now, touchdown! Here we go."