Brian Williams Examines the Possibility of the CFL Returning to Ottawa on TSN

The CFL’s
Ottawa Rough Riders were one of the oldest teams in North American professional
sports, before folding following the 1996 season. An attempt to resurrect
the CFL in

Ottawa
failed after the Renegades suspended operations in 2006 after just four seasons
of play. But now there is another push to return the CFL to the nation’s
capital.

TSN’s
Brian Williams examines this latest attempt to bring professional football back
to
Ottawa during the Wendy’s CFL on TSN: Friday
Night Football pre-game show tomorrow (Oct. 5) at 7:30 p.m. ET leading into the
B.C. @

Winnipeg
game on TSN and TSN HD.

Williams
will join the CFL on TSN panel from the Ottawa Civic Centre on Friday, where
the OHL’s 67’s play that night. Williams will go one-on-one with 67’s owner
Jeff Hunt, who is leading a group of local businessmen seeking to bring the CFL
back to

Ottawa.

Hunt tells
Williams he hopes that
Ottawa has “a
conditional franchise prior to the Grey Cup in

Toronto this year.”

Williams
also sits down with Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien, as well as long-time Ottawa-based
Globe and Mail sportswriter David Naylor, who has followed the demise of past
CFL teams in the city.

“All
they want in an owner…is someone who is credible, who has a track record for
being credible and who, when they make promises, they feel comfortable
believing them,” says Naylor. “I can’t think of a better
scenario…than Jeff Hunt and some credible businessmen who have a good
reputation in the community coming in to restart

Ottawa.”

Adds Mayor
O’Brien: “I’m very comfortable we have a bunch of people from the
community that want to do it and a bunch of people from council who want to do
it, so I’m very optimistic.”

All of
Brian Williams’s features and interviews this season are available on TSN
Broadband at www.TSN.ca