Fade to black
... and will anyone notice?
By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
They guaranteed three years.
They didn't make three months.
They projected and predicted 25,000 fans for their first game. They didn't make 25,000 for the total attendance of their entire existence.
The Edmonton Aviators A-League team was pronounced as good as dead yesterday.
The ownership group, which is believed to have paid more than a quarter of a million dollars for the franchise, walked away from a commitment and left league partners without a team to play unless the league decides to take over the team for the rest of the year.
The women's Aviators team, which at least managed to complete their season, is for sale. A dollar might do it.
How many times does Edmonton have to learn this lesson?
Our city is a big-time, big-event international-soccer city. It's a national team, international event, bring-us-the-best 60,000-seat, grass field, home of Canada's national soccer squad kind of city.
No-name teams in brand-X leagues don't work here. You can bring in Brazil and fill the place.
You can come close with a World Cup qualifying game against Australia and do very well, I suspect, with the U.S. in a World Cup qualifier if we ever get one.
But a can't-score, can't-win, kill-the-game team featuring a bunch of locals and a couple of guys nobody has ever heard of from Chile, Turkey or somewhere, isn't going to put people in the big park.
After people filled Commonwealth Stadium for the FIFA Womens World Championships, if you're going to succeed with a women's team in something called the W-League, you'd better have Christine Sinclair, Kara Lang and quite a few of their friends on it.
And, still, you wouldn't put the team in Commonwealth Stadium.
Think about that if you're thinking of spending that buck to buy yourself a women's soccer team.
The women, at least, play attractive soccer. They go forward, not backward. The players they had were of a much higher profile in the community than the men.
NEED CHRISTINE OR KARA
Maybe with an expanded Clarke Park and ... nah.
But fans will fill the stands next year when Sinclair, Lang & Co. play world-champion Germany in Commonwealth. One big game like that is what Edmonton is all about for this sport.
Commonwealth Stadium, of course, was the biggest (but hardly only) mistake by this ownership group.
The second big mistake was A-League and W-League. Does anybody know who won the A-League last year? Does anybody know who won the W-League last year? If 99.9% of people who call themselves soccer fans can't answer that question, what's your first clue?
Let us go back to the beginning.
Greg McDannold had just made the proclamation with great ceremony.
"A new era has taken flight," he enthused.
"The Edmonton Aviators have landed!"
With that he turned away from the podium, gazed into the glare of the television lights, and unceremoniously fell off the stage.
Crash-landed, as it were. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
If you were looking for something symbolic, unfortunately, McDannold's plunge without a parachute provided the obvious.
We should have wrote it all off then and there.
I mean, Joe Petrone was involved.
If Petrone is involved, you're dead before you begin.
How many teams in how many leagues has Joe Petrone managed to provide the kiss of death to over the years?
I've lost track. If he has nine lives, surely he's down to the last one or two.
But there was Wylie Stafford standing there at the press conference, telling us these guys were going to do it right.
"Our investors want us to go first class all the way, to do it right, with a bang and some flair," said Stafford.
"First class is the only way. We're set up and financed for a minimum three-year venture. We intend to do it first class from the beginning and give it every chance to be a success. If it doesn't work, we'll have nothing to be ashamed of in the attempt."
Well, be ashamed. Very ashamed.
WILE E. COYOTE
Now it's all going away with a trail of debt inside three months. A $100,000 performance bond is sacrificed. There are bills totalling that and more which have yet to be paid. And Edmonton's good name in sport has taken a hit. (Not in terms of the Aviators failing, but in terms of not finishing a season.)
"The entire concept is unique and special," said Stafford back in the beginning. "The owners are diverse and have a very sound business plan. Very few soccer entities in Canada have ever started like this one."
Wile E. Coyote had better plans trying to catch the Roadrunner than Wylie Stafford had of selling soccer.
The only thing that's mystifies me about the end of the Aviators is why it's a story. Nobody cared about them when they were living. Why should anybody care in the end?
