Acadie-Bathurst Titan moving to N.L., ownership says
Offer to keep team temporarily in New Brunswick fell through
It's official, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan are relocating from their New Brunswick home to St. John's.
The announcement was made Friday morning at a news conference in Boucherville, Que.
Marc Guignard, one of the team's shareholders, said the team has long struggled with attendance and hope this will serve as a lesson to fans in other other leagues.
"Please support your teams," said Guignard. "Please go to the games … Show them that you want to keep your team in your area."
A purchase agreement was signed Thursday evening.
City in mourning
While it was expected, the official announcement was a major blow to fans in the small northern New Brunswick city.
Kim Chamberlain, the mayor of Bathurst, said fans are in mourning.
"Let's look at the great memories that we had in the past 27 years and remember those," said Chamberlain.
While the group that ended up buying the team will move it to St. John's, it appears at least one bid came close to keeping it in Bathurst.
An ownership group from Montreal came forward with an offer to keep the team in place for at least three years, but wanted the city to provide an injection of cash to the team.
Guignard said the city wasn't interested, so the deal fell through.
"There was a condition that the City of Bathurst would give financial assistance to the level of $175,000 a year for a certain number of years, which was refused by the city," he said.
Guignard said his understanding was that the team would not have remained in the market over the long-term.
Chamberlain confirmed there was an offer to keep the team in Bathurst but the city would only give the same amount of support the Titan already receives.
"We offered them the same contract that the Titans presently have right now and they were still willing to buy it," said Chamberlain.
"The Titan belongs to the owner, and we cannot tell them who to sell the team to. They've chosen not to sell it to the team in Quebec."
The team still has a significant number of games to play in the city, all with the knowledge that the team is living on borrowed time.
This can lead to fans abandoning the team, or even turning hostile, as was seen this summer when Major League Baseball's Athletics announced their move from Oakland.
Guignard said he wanted to get the news out to fans as soon as the sale was finalized and said there are concerns about what the atmosphere at the rink will look like.
"The fans will decide if they want to cheer on their team for the last time until the end of the season, or it they want to discontinue coming to the rink altogether," said Guignard.
"We'll see what the fans decide."
But Chamberlain doesn't think the team has to worry about a less than warm response from fans.
"I don't think they will boo or boycott," said Chamberlain. "It's not who we are here."
2 QMJHL teams remain in province
While rumours of the team's move have circulated for a while, the team was pretty quick about announcing the sale when it was finalized.
Jamie Tozer, who runs the blog Station Nation and writes about the Saint John Sea Dogs, and the league as a whole, said he was impressed by the openness of ownership.
"I'm sure fans are still disappointed but at the same time I think they can understand how this went down, and they can understand why this happened," Tozer said.
As for where this leaves the league's other two New Brunswick franchises, the Sea Dogs and Moncton Wildcats, Tozer said he thinks the Wildcats are in a good position, but there are reasons to be concerned about the Sea Dogs, who used to lead in attendance, but now are in the middle of the pack at best.
"Something needs to change in Saint John," said Tozer.