Justin Dahan
By: Michael Woods – Ottawa Citizen
Photo: Justin Dahan
The Ottawa REDBLACKS took the field at their Lansdowne Park home for the first time on a cloudless Friday morning in late June to the sounds of bulldozers, dump trucks and jackhammers, as workers scrambled to finish building the stadium around them.
Players on the Canadian Football League’s newest team — this city’s third in less than two decades —marvelled at their surroundings, almost giddy as they stepped onto their home turf.
Sunlight beamed off the new red, black and white seats. The dark green turf was pristine. From the field, through the south stands, the players could see the stadium’s trademark cedar veil and the greenery along the Rideau Canal beyond.
“Quite the view, right?” exclaimed veteran quarterback Henry Burris, who remembers playing at the old, dilapidated Frank Clair Stadium, now a distant, demolished memory.
Patrolling the sidelines was REDBLACKS president Jeff Hunt, one of five partners in the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, the team of local businessmen who have partnered with the city in a $400-million redevelopment of Lansdowne Park.
The revitalized, newly-named TD Place at Lansdowne is the jewel in OSEG’s sports empire, which includes the REDBLACKS, North American Soccer League’s Fury FC and the OHL’s Ottawa 67′s.
It is also where, Friday night at the team’s home-opener, Hunt and his partners hope to banish the bitter memories of past football failures and begin a new era of gridiron glory in the capital.
They have been building toward this night for seven years. They have endured city council meetings, fought legal battles, gathered sponsors, sold season tickets, built a brand, hired a football operations staff and assembled a roster.
Expectations have also been building; when the REDBLACKS kick off against the Toronto Argonauts before a sold-out crowd, the players won’t be the only ones with something to prove.
“Right now there’s nobody in these stands, but can you imagine … how things are going to look when you put 24,000 people in the stands?” Burris said after that late June practice. “You’ll see a packed house, and people going crazy. It’s going to be loud. You’re truly going to feel the energy of just how excited people are to have football back in this city.”
