History
The team had been in contact with previous Rough Riders owner Horn Chen regarding the Rough Riders name and the team " his price." The Rough Riders name still retains popular currency among football fans in Ottawa. The Rough Riders enjoyed a 120-year history, during which time they won the Grey Cup nine times. However, in July 2010, Jeff Hunt announced that the Rough Riders name would likely not be returning due to the objections of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, though the team did successfully purchase the rights to the Rough Riders name from Chen.
Concurrently, Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk had announced plans to bid for a Major League Soccer franchise to play in Ottawa and to build a new soccer specific stadium near the Senators' Scotiabank Place in support of these plans. Depending on the stadium's design it could possibly be used by a CFL team instead of the aging Frank Clair Stadium. However, the CFL and MLS groups have not indicated that they are co-ordinating their plans. Furthermore, municipal officials have questioned whether the city could support both a CFL and an MLS franchise.
In April 2009, the staff of the City of Ottawa presented a report to Council on the merits of the Soccer Stadium and Lansdowne proposals. The city held public hearings based on the report, which questioned the necessity of the spending, but gave a slight edge to the Lansdowne proposal. Councillors attempted to find out whether the SSE group would support sharing their stadium with a planned CFL franchise, but the SSE group rejected the possibility. On April 22, 2009, the City of Ottawa Council chose the Lansdowne Live proposal over the SSE proposal as its choice for an outdoor stadium. Over the next several months, negotiations were made leading up to August 26, where a presentation was made to Ottawa City Council would ultimately decide the fate of football in Ottawa in the foreseeable future.
On November 12 and 13, City Council held a public debate to discuss what should be done with the area at Lansdowne Park. Guest speakers included Mark Cohon and former Rough Riders Jock Climie and Mark Kosmos who all presented their case as to why Lansdowne Live was an important contributor to the city of Ottawa. The following Monday, on November 16, it was reported that Ottawa City Council had voted 15–9 in favour of plans to redevelop Lansdowne Park with the purpose of housing a CFL team. The Hunt Group had until June 2010 to sort out the details of the redevelopment with construction likely to begin in the spring of 2011.
On June 28, 2010, after a 12-hour meeting, Ottawa city council approved the plan to redevelop Lansdowne Park by the same vote of 15–9, all but securing a franchise in the nation's capital. With construction on the stadium originally scheduled to begin in 2011, the earliest a team could play would be in 2013 under the original time line. After a failed legal challenge and a Ontario Municipal Board hearing on the Lansdowne Park redevelopment, construction on the stadium will not begin until 2012, with a completion in summer 2015, although there have been indications that the stadium could be opened for CFL football as early as 2014. Without a viable stadium, the debut of the team would necessarily be pushed back accordingly.
October 10, 2012, marked the final political hurdle that the new franchise had to clear as a 21–3 vote by the Ottawa City Council in favour of the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park passed. Construction on the north and south side stands was set to begin in October 2012.
On December 6, 2012, the CFL opened name voting for the team, up until December 16, 2012, on www.nameourteams.com. It was speculated that the team would be called the Rush, but this has since been debunked. The Rush name was nonetheless included in a list of five potential names (Nationals, Voyageurs, RedBlacks and Raftsmen being the others) for the team in a focus group led by the team's owners in January 2013.
On January 30, 2013, Marcel Desjardins was named the first general manager in team history.
On May 30, 2013, the website Sportslogos.net reported that the nickname RedBlacks (and its French equivalent, Rouge et Noir) have been filed by the Ottawa franchise with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. On June 8, 2013, the name for the RedBlacks was officially unveiled along with the team's logo, an italicized Rough Riders "R" surrounded by a red outline inside a black saw blade.
Read more about this topic: Ottawa Canadian Football League Team
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