The Atlantic Schooners were a conditional
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(CFL)
expansion team that was to begin play in 1984 in
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. However, team ownership could not secure funding for a stadium and the franchise application was withdrawn 13 months after it had been submitted.
The Atlantic Schooners name was revived in 2018 as the name of a
proposed CFL expansion team.
Franchise history
On May 13, 1982, Maritime Professional Football Club Ltd. was granted a conditional expansion franchise by the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
's board of governors with unanimous approval.
The team was to pay a $1.5 million expansion fee by May 1, 1983 and could begin play in
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
if a suitable 30,000 seat stadium were built in time for the league opener that year.
The ownership group was led by John Donoval, a
Mississauga, Ontario truck executive, and
J. I. Albrecht, former
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
of the
Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes (French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the East Division of the Canad ...
. Even before the franchise was officially awarded, Albrecht, who was working as a football consultant for Donoval, planned to hire
Acadia Axemen
The Acadia Axemen and Axewomen are the men's and women's athletic teams that represent Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. The on-campus sports facilities used by Axemen teams include Raymond Field for various field sports and A ...
head coach
John Huard
John Roland "Big John" Huard (born March 9, 1944) is an American business executive and a former gridiron football player and coach.
After playing college football at the University of Maine, he played professionally as a linebacker with the Den ...
as the Schooners' first head coach.
As expected, Huard was named as head coach on the same day that the franchise was awarded.
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
industrialist, Robert Burns Cameron joined the ownership group on August 30, 1982 and was reported to have invested over 50% into the group.
On November 3, 1982, the team name Atlantic Schooners was officially announced by Albrecht at a press conference in
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348 ...
.
It was selected based on a study followed by a name-the-team contest in which "
schooner" was the winning selection. Other names that were considered by Donoval were Atlantic Windjammers and Atlantic Storm.
The goal was to have a regional team that would represent all of
Atlantic Canada.
The logo was a stylized "A" in the shape of a schooner that rode on four waves, representing the four Atlantic provinces of
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
,
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
,
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...
, and
Newfoundland. The team colours were silver, maritime blue, nautical brass, and white.
An
expansion draft
An expansion draft, in professional sports, occurs when a sports league decides to create one or more new expansion teams or franchises. This occurs mainly in North American sports. One of the ways of stocking the new team or teams is an expansio ...
was planned to be held following the
1983 CFL season
The 1983 CFL season is considered to be the 30th season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 26th Canadian Football League season.
CFL News in 1983
The CFL re-signed with Carling O'Keefe Breweries to another record tel ...
where, initially, a maximum of 38 players from the
existing nine member clubs would be used to form a roster.
The actual formula was approved on November 24, 1982 by the CFL governors. Each of the nine existing clubs would be able to protect 10 imports and 10 non-imports from their final rosters from the 1983 season. The Schooners would then select two imports and two non-imports from each team for a maximum of 36 players. Each team could only protect one quarterback and the Schooners could draft a maximum of two in total. The draft would have taken place in January 1984.
The Schooners proposed home was a 34,000-seat stadium located on leased land in the city of
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, said to be built at a cost of $6 million. When the franchise was awarded, it was still being debated between the mayors of Halifax and Dartmouth where the new stadium should be built as both wanted the team in their respective cities.
However, neither the provincial or federal government were willing to contribute to the funding of the stadium. As described by senator
Ray Perrault
Raymond Joseph Perrault, (February 6, 1926 – November 24, 2008) was a Canadian politician. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and of the Senate of Canada.
Perrault was born in Vancouver, British Columbia ...
, minister of state for fitness and amateur sport, federal funds were only made available when a city was hosting an international event, such as the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...
or
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...
. The
Premier of Nova Scotia,
John Buchanan, also stated that no provincial funding would be made available in any circumstance. The ownership group had purchased a scoreboard from the
New England Patriots'
Sullivan Stadium for use in their new stadium.
Ultimately, the Schooners were unable to meet the deadlines set by the league, including the deadline for a financing plan for the new stadium. On June 16, 1983, Maritime Professional Football Club Ltd. withdrew their application for a franchise and refunded season ticket deposits. The ownership group's withdrawal came one day before the league deadline because Donoval believed that a withdrawal rather than league rejection would make re-applying for a franchise easier. However, another franchise application never came to fruition.
See also
*
Touchdown Atlantic
Touchdown Atlantic (French: ''Touché Atlantique'') is a series of neutral site Canadian Football League games played in the maritime provinces of Canada.
In 2003, the league had struck a committee to examine the feasibility of adding a tenth t ...
*
Schooners Sports and Entertainment
Schooners Sports and Entertainment is a sports ownership group currently in negotiations with the Canadian Football League (CFL) for an expansion team that is expected to begin play sometime in the 2020s as the Atlantic Schooners. Should the te ...
*
CFL Expansion
References
External links
Official Website
{{CFL
Sports clubs established in 1982
Sports clubs disestablished in 1983
Defunct Canadian Football League teams
Sports teams in Nova Scotia
Sport in Halifax, Nova Scotia
1982 establishments in Nova Scotia
1983 disestablishments in Nova Scotia