Flashback, March 25th, 2008: Ottawa awarded conditional CFL Franchise

The article below was originally from the Ottawa edition of CTVnews.

A group of investors has agreed to pay the Canadian Football League a $7 million fee to bring a new CFL franchise to Ottawa.

CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon awarded the investors, led by Ottawa 67s owner Jeff Hunt, a conditional franchise on Tuesday.

The league and the investors say they're hoping to restore the Capital with the Ottawa Rough Riders' glory days.

"This day has been a long time coming for me," Hunt told reporters at an afternoon news conference.

"Over the years, as a fan, I sat and imagined what I would do if I owned the team and it's a great day for me to finally be able to exercise - at least hope to exercise - some of those thoughts," he said.

Hunt says he hopes to run an Ottawa CFL franchise just like a fan.

"I'm one of you and I have that perspective," Hunt said to CFL fans.

William Shenkman, chairman of Shenkman Corp. and one of Hunt's partners, says the group of investors plans to use the franchise to bring a "family" football experience to the Capital.

"Our goal is to create a full family experience in a world class facility, featuring a football team that's competitive on the field and high profile in the community," said Shenkman.

The CFL says Ottawa is an ideal market, with over one million people in the National Capital Region.

The league says the next step is ensuring Ottawa has the "right facility" to accommodate a CFL team.

The deal will only move forward if an agreement is struck with the city of Ottawa to build an appropriate stadium.

Why post this now, more than five years later?  Simply because it was the launching point of the team's creation.  The first few posts on this blog will geared towards bringing us to the present point.

Will that include the court cases, appeals and other attempts to block the project?  Absolutely not.  The self-serving hypocrisy of the people who attempted to block this project does not deserve to be acknowledged.  In fact, there were quotes from one of the more vocal opponents in the article above and I removed them.

The early days of this blog will be fairly busy as I work my way up to the present, at which point we'll begin to direct our attention to the hiring of a head coach, the revelation of the uniforms, and the expansion draft.  Believe me, these days, I would much rather look forward to the future then researchig the recent past.