THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA -- Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk recalled his childhood Tuesday, one in which he spent hours alongside his grandfather in Toronto's Stanley Park, watching the Toronto Ukrainians compete in the old National Soccer League.
The 49-year-old businessman cited those fond memories as part of the inspiration behind his drive to bring a Major League Soccer franchise to Ottawa in time for the 2011 season.
"Hockey may be Canada's game, but soccer is the world's game," Melnyk said after his group, Senators Sports & Entertainment, unveiled plans for a new soccer-specific stadium that would seat up to 30,000 supporters and is the backbone of Ottawa's bid for an expansion team.
"We want to bring the world's game to Ottawa," he said at a news conference at Scotiabank Place, home of the NHL's Senators. "It's a strong, exciting brand of soccer and we want to be part of it."
With the 14-team league already set to expand by two (Seattle Sounders FC will begin play in 2009 and an unnamed Philadelphia franchise in 2010), it intends to add two more teams the following year.
At the MLS all-star game in Toronto in July, MLS commissioner Don Garber announced that Ottawa was among the cities in the running, along with Montreal, Vancouver, Atlanta, St. Louis, Portland, Ore., Las Vegas and New York.
The deadline for bidding is Oct. 15, with a decision on the awarding of the franchises not expected until late this year or early in 2009. The winning bids will pay a US$40-million expansion fee. That's up from the $10-million fee Toronto FC paid in 2006 and $30 million spent by Seattle and Philadelphia last year.
Ottawa would have to be considered a long shot. Vancouver, which has interest from two separate groups, and Montreal already have shown they could support a team with the success of the Whitecaps and Impact, respectively, in the First Division of the United Soccer Leagues.
Meanwhile, the U.S. groups have some big financial backing, including Major League Baseball's New York Mets, who are behind the pursuit of a second MLS franchise in the New York area.
"Nothing's going to be simple. We're not kidding ourselves," said Senators Sports & Entertainment chief operating officer Cyril Leeder, who was part of the original group that landed the NHL in Ottawa after skeptics similarly said it had little chance for a team. "It's going to take a lot of work."
But the project holds special meaning to Melnyk. His grandfather was president of the National Soccer League, and he introduced Melnyk's father to his mother through links from that Toronto Ukrainians club.
Melnyk thinks the success of the Senators since he purchased the team and its arena in 2003 after it had filed for bankruptcy protection will be a strong selling point. Although Ottawa suffered through a disappointing season on the ice last year, it remained one of the NHL's stronger teams in terms of attendance and regularly sold out its 19,153-seat building.
"If you look at what they tried to do 20 years ago, people were laughing at it," said Melnyk, the former chief executive of Canadian pharmaceutical giant Biovail Corp. "Look where we are today, one of the most successful hockey franchises in the NHL. There's no question we can do that with soccer here in Ottawa.
"What we bring to the table is everything that the MLS is looking for, and that's the fact that we own a major sports franchise, a very successful one. Everybody looks at these things and they say, `These people have a great organization.'
"Are you really pitching them whether you can get 20,000 people out to a game? I think that's going to be a pretty easy sell. I think that's a gimme, and we'll do a pretty good job of selling that."
.Melnyk also said he spoke with the Saputo family, which owns the Impact and Monteal's Saputo Stadium, at the MLS all-star game and sees the chance for the MLS to create natural rivalry by awarding teams to both cities.
A name for Ottawa's team, its logo and colours would be determined only after a successful bid.
Key to the process is the building of the new stadium, required by MLS in order to pursue a bid. The plan is to build a natural turf, horseshoe-shaped facility at an expected cost in the range of $100 million.
It will be located in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, across the street and just down the road from Scotiabank Place. The site is currently an empty, 15-hectare field that's used as a snow dump by the city during the winter months.
It would also be used to play host to any future FIFA events, such as in Canada's bid for the 2015 Women's World Cup, Leeder said.
Plans to build it are contingent on being awarded the franchise, however.
"No stadium, no MLS franchise," Melnyk said. "The two are tied together. We need a franchise for the stadium to be viable and vice versa."
The stadium plan isn't without numerous stumbling blocks.
The land is currently owned by the city and so far there's been no commitment from the city to any bid.
In addition to corporate sponsorship, naming rights, and his group's own money, some input from the government would likely be necessary to pay for the stadium.
None of the area's politicians attended the news conference and, given the fact that elections are coming before the bidding deadline, securing any political backing could prove tricky.
Matters may be further complicated with a separate group attempting to bring the CFL back to Ottawa -- a process that's stalled while debate goes on over the future of Frank Clair Stadium in the city's downtown area.
Leeder said the idea of the stadium doubling to house a CFL team is also being considered, although that seems to run counter to the selling of the stadium as sport-specific.
In the meantime, a website has been set up at www.BringtheWorldtoOttawa.ca, where fans can register their support for the bid. Melnyk thinks Ottawa's fan base, coupled with his familiarity with some of the owners of current MLS teams, including Toronto FC's parent Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment group, will work in the bid's favour.
"These are very smart people (on the MLS board), many of them own hockey franchises, they know what we've done here in Ottawa, they know what our attendance levels are," Melnyk said. "Word gets around, who are the success stories and who aren't."
