[projekktor id=’13859′]
Many Hamilton football fans are pretty sure Tim Hortons Field won’t be ready to host a home game until the Labour Day Classic. That means three Ticat games would have to be played at Ron Joyce Stadium — even though the announcement Monday only said the first two home games of the season would be relocated. And there are more season ticket holders this year.
There are almost 15-thousand season ticket holders this year — the new stadium will have 24-thousand seats. But Ron Joyce Stadium at McMaster only holds six-thousand. So who gets to go to those first games? The Ticats have a letter they’re about to send out to season ticket holders about that — it says that on Thursday morning, they will get an email or a call from the Ticats asking which of the two games they want to see at Ron Joyce — then the team will try to accommodate those requests. We talked to some diehard fans who are ok with the plan.
Steve Townsend was four-years old in 1979. He already liked to watch Ticat games on TV. And one day a doctor at the hospital, suggested he try the wheelchair section and see a game at Ivor Wynne.
He loves sports, he was never able to play because they said he’d never walk, he’d be a vegetable.
He and his mother Barbara have only missed four games in the 35 years since then: “Oh my god. When’s the next game mommy, when’s the next game.”
Steve has rescheduled more than one brain surgery to not miss a Ticat game. His mother has cooked many Thanksgiving dinners for Ticat players. Danny McManus once spent five hours at his hospital bedside: “The docs and the nurses say what runs through his veins is black and yellow.”
So you’d think they’d be upset at having to miss at least one Ticat game, with the limited seats at Ron Joyce Stadium, but they say, it’s better than having to go to Guelph. It’s better than a stadium that’s not finished: “It is ok. I don’t want to go in and it not be ready, something go wrong, it’ll just be a travesty. If the elevator’s not working, how am I going to get him up to our seats?”
Ticat business president Glenn Gibson says he was surprised Monday afternoon to find out Tim Hortons Field wouldn’t be ready in time: “The whole concept that started to unfold on Monday is that it was not likely we were going to get the approval for the site to be safe. We were always hoping we wouldn’t have to execute plan B.”
Still to be done — install the field, the sprinkler system, the seats, the railings & elevators, the box suites, the broadcast facilities. All mechanical and electrical work. And finish the exterior facade.
