Touchdown Atlantic - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Touchdown Atlantic is a series of Canadian Football League

Canadian Football League

The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

games played in the maritime provinces

Maritimes

The Maritime provinces, also called the Maritimes or the Canadian Maritimes, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. On the Atlantic coast, the Maritimes are a subregion of Atlantic Canada, which also includes the...

.

In 2003, the league had struck a committee to examine the feasibility of adding a tenth team, with the leading candidate cities being Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

and Halifax. An exhibition game between Ottawa and Montreal was held in Quebec City in 2003 at PEPS Stadium

PEPS

The ' , usually called PEPS for short, is a sports complex located in Quebec City, Quebec, on the campus of the Université Laval...

. Before the suspension of the Renegades, league commissioner Tom Wright had indicated that Halifax was the leading candidate for expansion. With the success of Touchdown Atlantic 2010, Moncton has moved into position of front runner for CFL expansion.

As every CFL field has an artificial surface, the Touchdown Atlantic game is the only CFL game played on grass all season. However, artificial turf has to be laid over the track at each end of the stadium in order to accommodate the end zones.

Exhibition games

The first exhibition pre-season game was played in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at Huskies Stadium

Huskies Stadium

The Huskies Stadium is a Canadian football stadium in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that is host to Saint Mary's Huskies. It has a promoted capacity of 9,000 to 11,000 that is achieveable via temporary seating, but the actual permanent seating is only 4000. It was built in 1970...

in June 2005. The game was between the Toronto Argonauts

Toronto Argonauts

The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...

and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats. The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium...

and ended in a 16–16 tie.

The game was to gauge Halifax's support for a potential CFL expansion team, which would likely be named the Schooners

Atlantic Schooners

The Atlantic Schooners were a conditional Canadian Football League expansion team that was to begin play in 1984 out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.On May 13, 1982, Maritime Professional Football Club Ltd. was granted a conditional expansion franchise...

. Temporary seating was added to boost the capacity to 11,000. The game sold out. It was also used by the league to test its instant replay

Instant replay

Instant replay is the replaying of video footage of an event or incident very soon after it has occurred. In television broadcasting of sports events, instant replay is often used during live broadcast, to show a passage of play which was important or remarkable, or which was unclear on first...

challenge system which was implemented in the 2006 CFL season

2006 CFL season

-2006 Rogers CFL Awards:* CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award – Geroy Simon , BC Lions* CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian Award – Brent Johnson , BC Lions* CFL's Most Outstanding Defensive Player Award – Brent Johnson , BC Lions...

.

Another game was to be played on June 3, 2006 in Halifax at Huskies Stadium with temporary seating for a capacity of 11,000 fans. This game was canceled after the suspension of the Ottawa Renegades

Ottawa Renegades

Ottawa Renegades was the most recent name of a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario founded in 2002, seven years after the storied Ottawa Rough Riders folded...

. They were supposed to play the Montreal Alouettes

Montreal Alouettes

The Montreal Alouettes are a Canadian Football League team based in Montreal, Quebec.The current franchise named the Alouettes moved to Montreal from Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996 where they had been known as the Baltimore Stallions...

.

Prior to the official Touchdown Atlantic series, Saint John, New Brunswick

Saint John, New Brunswick

City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...

, hosted a pair of exhibition games in 1986 and 1987. In 1986, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League . They play their home games at Canad Inns Stadium, and plan to move to a new stadium for the 2012 season.The Blue Bombers were founded...

defeated the Montreal Alouettes

Montreal Alouettes

35–10 at Canada Games Stadium

Canada Games Stadium

Canada Games Stadium is a multi-purpose, fully lit stadium in Saint John, New Brunswick.It was built on the campus of UNB Saint John for the 1985 Jeux Canada Games and has a seating capacity of 5,000 spectators....

before 11,463 fans. The following year the Alouettes returned to the Port City and lost 14–13 to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

; the Alouettes would fold a week later.

Regular season games

In October 2009, it was officially announced that the Edmonton Eskimos

Edmonton Eskimos

The Edmonton Eskimos are a Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. They currently play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League . Edmonton is currently the third-youngest franchise in the CFL, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895...

would face the Toronto Argonauts in Moncton, New Brunswick

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

, on September 26, 2010, in the first regular season game ever in Atlantic Canada. That game was referred to as Touchdown Atlantic. The game was played at the new Moncton Stadium on the campus of Université de Moncton

Université de Moncton

The Université de Moncton is a French language university located in Moncton, New Brunswick serving the Acadian community of Atlantic Canada...

in front of a reported sell-out crowd of 20,725. Tickets went on sale to the general public on March 25, 2010, with a one-day pre-sale being conducted the day before. After 32 hours of being up for sale, the 2010 Touchdown Atlantic was announced as a sellout on March 25, 2010. The Eskimos won the game 24–6 thanks to their 247 interception return yards on six interceptions, the second most interception return yards in CFL history.

A 2011 Touchdown Atlantic game, somewhat erroneously known as Touchdown Atlantic II, has been confirmed for the 2011 CFL season

2011 CFL season

The 2011 CFL season was the 58th season of modern Canadian professional football. Officially, it was the 54th season of the league. The complete schedule was released on February 18 and featured the defending Grey Cup champion Montreal Alouettes opening the season against the visiting BC Lions on...

, again in Moncton. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

were the designated home team and faced the Calgary Stampeders

Calgary Stampeders

The Calgary Stampeders are a Canadian Football League team based in Calgary, Alberta and named in reference to the Calgary Stampede. The Stampeders play their home games at McMahon Stadium...

on September 25, 2011 at Moncton Stadium. Hamilton won the game, 55–36.

Potential for Moncton expansion

Moncton is now considered a frontrunner for a Canadian Football League franchise in Atlantic Canada, according to the commissioner.
The success of a September 26 game in Moncton — the CFL’s first regular season game in Atlantic Canada — has cemented Moncton in this role.Also Moncton is considered a front runner for expansion because of its centralized location in the region, since it is likely that a team in the region would represent all four Atlantic provinces due to the region's small population. Moncton officials are negotiating to temporarily host the Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

for the 2013 season while Ivor Wynne Stadium

Ivor Wynne Stadium

Ivor Wynne Stadium is a Canadian football stadium located at the corner of Balsam and Beechwood Avenues, two blocks west of Gage Avenue North in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada...

is demolished and Pan American Stadium is under construction.

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