With the CFL seeming to be the most stable it has in years, there’s no shortage of folks wishing the League would come to their home town. Over the years we’ve heard of possible teams for Halifax, Quebec City, London and Windsor. The heavily populated areas of the East are the most likely candidates for expansion, if and when the day should come. But what about the West? Other than Kelowna, which might possibly be a solid location for a franchise, with its growing population of the Okanagan Valley, the only other potential locale in the West is Victoria.
As usual the situation of stadiums rears it’s ugly head, quickly dashing the hopes of would be fans and entrepreneurs alike. Victoria at the moment can only offer up Centennial Stadium a 4,000 seat structure used mainly for soccer in the Capital of BC. But that doesn’t stop the dreamers a piece in the Victoria Express recently took a look at the idea of Canadian Football on Vancouver Island.
Bobby Ackles of the BC Lions, brought everyone back down to earth with his view of the current situation. Said Ackles, maybe a Lions training camp one day, but as far as a franchise, well that may be a ways off yet.
Regardless though, just the idea of enticing a CFL franchise is a good sign. For the league it shows a rebirth of interest and league executives could go to many worse places than Vancouver Island which is one of the fastest growing regions in the country, roughly 500,000 people could be within a four hour or less drive of the stadium.
A team on Vancouver Island would be a natural rival for the Leos and most likely would find some pretty solid support from Islanders, looking to have something to call their own. But there’s no stadium at the moment, so dust off the photos of the Commonwealth games of 1994, they hosted one of the biggest sports events going, one suspects that they would rally around a CFL franchise should one come their way.
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