Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
He should be fired for not having a crystal ball? I don't think in 2007 he could have predicted the recessions and flood that clearly are the main reasons for the delay as well as the acquisition of the Stampeders which added the McMahon situation to his plate.
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As GGG said, stop and think about the timeline for a minute. To have the arena open by 2015, they would have needed to get city approval by around 2011 and had shovels hitting the ground in 2012. The flood has nothing to do with the fact the Flames have gotten nowhere on an arena for going on 10 years now. The recession has nothing to do with it. Buying the Stamps might have something to do with it. If so, then I have to say it was a bad decision.
The most likely reason almost 10 years have gone by with no arena in sight is the ownership wanted to extract the maximum possible amount of funding out of the city and province, and they've waited years and years for the right environment. Turns out that was a bad gamble on their part, because government is even less inclined to give them funding now than they were 8 or 9 years ago.
So now they're going to end up getting construction on an arena underway in 2021 and finished in 2023 when they could have had an arena ready to open this year. And it's going to cost them what they would have had to pony up in in the first place. Maybe more. Good job.