The saga of Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton continues. After two months’ delay in opening the stadium to actual football games, the brand-new venue opened for the Labour Day classic.
Everyone knew the stadium plan was audacious. Tear down venerable, 80-year-old Ivor Wynne Stadium in the fall of 2012; build the new stadium starting in the spring of 2013; play the 2013 season at another venue; put the finishing touches on in June 2014 and be ready for opening by July. One CFL season elsewhere, and start fresh with a nice new stadium where the old one stood.
The Problems Appear
The first signs that things were not going as planned were apparent in the spring of 2014. The thaw revealed a far from finished structure, bare girders stretching into the air without much else in place. And as May passed, seats were still not bolted on, and two-by-fours were still roughly nailed in place as guard rails. The turf wasn’t laid and the entire site remained a construction zone.
Meanwhile, the builders continued to insist that by July 26, there would be football on the field.
Stories emerged all spring about the reasons for scheduling delays. First was the long and heavy winter; if they’d had the nearly snow-free winter of 2012-13, things would have been farther along, but the snowdrifts hung around into April this year and that slowed construction. Worse, one of the major contractors went bust, leaving the builders scrambling to get more done.
Unsurprisingly, the July 26th opener was moved to McMaster – a 5,500-seat university stadium – in mid-July. The lone August game was also moved to Mac, and Labour Day loomed. Not many alternatives remained by that point: Mac refused to host the date, leaving the Ticats brass to speculate about moving to Rogers Centre instead.
Opening Day – Sort Of
But the city granted the occupancy permit late on Sunday evening, and by Monday at noon the gates were open and 18,135 fans were streaming in to the new stadium. The place was cleaned up nicely – even if some rough lumber still served as railings, and long lines snaked out of the washrooms. The fans, at least, were happy to be there.
But the problems remain. The 18,000 fans represent only three-quarters of the total seating in the stadium; the upper half of the west end stands remain closed. Today the team announced to season ticket holders that those seats would not open for at least the next two games, which are scheduled for September 16 and 20. Season seats are being accommodated in the east stands in the meantime.
While the opening game at THF is in the books, and the speculation about upcoming deadlines has died away, this remains a nagging problem for both the team and the fans. The empty seats will continue to loom over the field on game days for another month; it’s likely that the fans will not get the full home field experience until the start of the 2015 season. Even a home playoff game will likely be tainted with closed washrooms, temporary food and drink service facilities, and unfinished outdoor areas.
Better Than Nothing?
Tiger-Cats fans are thankful for their new stadium, of course, and even three-quarters of a stadium is better than nothing. And the problems can’t be laid at the feet of the team, despite some fans lashing out at them in anger; Ticats management had little say over the construction details. The real culprits are the planners and managers at the faceless public agency Infrastructure Ontario, and ranting about their incompetence isn’t very satisfying.
So Hamilton fans will take a half-cup of coffee over none, even if it’s cooled off a little between the projected July 26th opening date and whatever the actual finishing date might be. But until every last piece of the new stadium is in place, no one can really be happy about the situation. Here’s hoping the fresh hot cup of joe in 2015 is enough to wash the bad taste that this stadium-building experiment has left with us.
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