Attending a Voyageurs press conference was not something that many people had on their agenda for today. It was unfortunate that the news leaked out the way it did, but my understanding is that most, if not all of the Voyageurs employees had already been given the news.
For fans of baseball – local baseball, today was a tough day; we got knocked on our ass. The question is, what do we do now? And the League will be monitoring the response – will people still care, or will today’s news be met with a yawn? If it’s the latter, then the Can-Am League and (perhaps more importantly) the Corporation of the City of Ottawa will move on too.
Some important things to keep in mind on this otherwise gloomy March afternoon. First, the League holds the lease for the duration of 2009. Second, while I would have preferred to have had the luxury of enjoying games at the Stadium this summer while we were looking for new owners – we remain committed to finding new owners.
The principal players here – the fans, the Voyageurs front office staff, the players, Bruce and Miles have all faced a very difficult, disappointing day. For me personally, and for my son, it has left us deeply saddened. We will have to find other things to do with our time this summer – we all will. It’s not what any of us had anticipated or contemplated just a few short days ago, and we’ll have to adjust to this new “reality”. We’ll pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and recover.
What Bruce and I will not do is “move on”. Not yet. The Voyageurs aren’t operating in 2009 – but not because of anything they did or failed to do. Without an owner this team simply and perhaps, fatally, did not control its own destiny. Wholly reliant upon the League for its financial support, any bump in the road could potentially upset the apple cart. The failure of Atlantic City was a pretty big “bump”, one that ultimately proved catastrophic for the 2009 Voyageurs. There is a sense among those same principal players, especially for the GM Barry Robinson, that there is a lot being left on the table – there was great potential for this team. Too much for some of us to simply walk away from.
Today, in the vernacular of my 12 year old son, sucks. But it’s how we deal with it tomorrow that matters.
