u/NH787

So I went away for a little r and r, and I'm catching up on the news after getting back to town.

These are the headlines I see:

• Giant Tiger closing downtown store

• Woman stabbed to death at Portage Place

• IGM puts its headquarters office tower up for sale

• Canad Inns puts its downtown buildings up for sale

To put it bluntly, this is a horrendous set of headlines. And that's just one week's worth. For a while I thought downtown might bounce back after a few rough years with the pandemic and a sharp increase in street drugs, but it appears that people and big capital alike have basically abandoned downtown at this point. Damn near everything is closing, or up for sale, or both. No amount of PR spin by the Downtown BIZ can make anyone capable of critical thought believe that there is any kind of "renaissance" taking place.

It is troubling that all these years of efforts directed at downtown renewal, pretty much going back as far as the 1960s with the development of City Hall and Manitoba Centennial Centre, with likely billions of dollars spent over the decades, have gotten us an increasingly dysfunctional wasteland to show for it.

What the hell

So the Sea Bears held on to keep the perfect home record intact.

Nice to see Kraus and Hildebrandt playing big minutes and racking up the points... kind of feels like their Bison days all over again. Kraus almost messed it up at the end but Simon bailed him out with the game winner.

Not quite sure what happened with Tilmon getting bounced from the game. I didn't notice anything but then again I sit way up in the 200s.

Edmonton is a really physical team, I'm not sure I've seen another team that aggressive at CLC.

Halftime show was great, I loved the WPW action. Sea Bears are cooking with the halftime shows, Shania was great at the last game. The 90s music the DJ was playing during the game was nice but honestly I heard enough of it back in the day haha.

Next up, Calgary on Sunday. I see they beat the Bandits by 15 last night, I think they're getting things figured out.

The league is scheduled to announce the addition of Winnipeg as it's 7th club on July 14th. Team will begin play in 2027 at Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex (part of the announcement will be significant upgrades to the facility supported through government funding).

Back in the Doer era some 20-odd years ago, the provincial government opened up a fairly substantial number of cottage lots. The thinking was that it would make cottaging more accessible to people. I'm sure the fact that it could make the province a few bucks didn't hurt either.

The population has grown quite a bit since then, but there really haven't been any significant additions to the inventory of cottage lots that I'm aware of. Is the province giving any thought to developing more cottage areas? Seems to me that it could be a good time to do it.

I was looking at Thompson-Churchill and return options, and I noticed that VIA 690 is showing as sold out in economy on July 28. On past trips to Churchill it always seemed like there was plenty of room in economy, I never heard of a sold out train before.

Is this common now? Any idea what is going on that it would be showing as sold out this far in advance?

I grew up going to the Ex when I was a kid in the 80s and kept going until well into the 90s around the time that they moved from Polo Park to the Assiniboia Downs area.

When I was a kid it felt like there was a lot more to it than just the midway. You had the big arena concerts of course, but there were a lot of animal and art-type exhibitions, lots of vendors, various other displays and such.

The Ex now still has the midway of course, but the rest seems like it is what you'd expect in a small town fair in a place like Altona or Rivers or some such.

The Exhibition Hall has at least a few vendors and art exhibits, although it's a shadow of what it once was.

There is that area on the northwest corner that has the most random mishmash of stuff imaginable, you have a bunch of African jungle animal statues, a bunch of dinosaur statues, some teepees, a caboose, construction equipment, model boats, a half-assed petting zoo, a haunted house which is really a bunch of random Home Depot halloween decorations, some old farm equipment and other stuff all strewn about in the most haphazard way possible.

The performers are doing their best but it in the most forlorn looking set ups imaginable.... the K Pop Demon Hunters/Huntrix group was a hit with my daughter but the stage was minimal to the extreme. There was a pro wrestling show but it was stashed away where nobody could see it and for the two sessions I attended there were fewer than 50 people there.

I feel like the people running the Ex have no idea how to run an event like this. Or maybe they do and they just don't have money to do anything, I don't know. But it feels like such a far cry from what it used to be back in the day.

Source: https://dmis.winnipeg.ca/ViewMeeting?documentId=29026&sectionId=832769

This is an interesting development as Rob Gale and Desiree Scott lead an effort to get a NSL team for Winnipeg.

With the folding of Valour FC last year, there is no top tier pro soccer team for either sex in Winnipeg. One of the reasons that Valour went under was their home field, it was generally regarded that Princess Auto Stadium was way too big for the CPL and it lacked good atmosphere to attract fans. So the NSL proponents are looking to fill the pro soccer void locally, and they are apparently looking to correct the venue problem by hosting the team at Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex.

The Soccer Complex is definitely not a pro level facility so it will need major upgrades. According to the linked City of Winnipeg report, the $600,000 grant will go towards the installation of an artificial turf field and lighting upgrades. The Winnipeg Soccer Federation and Government of Manitoba will come up with the remaining $900,000 needed for other upgrades like seating, washrooms, concession and locker room improvements. The report notes that a lot of this NSL infrastructure will be temporary (much like how the Halifax Wanderers CPL field is set up), so that will keep costs manageable.

Anyway, it's interesting to see how the plan to bring the NSL to Winnipeg is coming together.

DAMN