Ottawa is in

[summerfan]

Last night the city of ottawa agreed to allow a can am team to play out of lynx stadium.As per my understanding the grays will now become the ottawa grays.

2008 Teams
Ottawa.
Sussex.
Nashua.
Brockton.
Worcester.
New Jersey.
Atlantic City.
Quebec City.

[OttawaBallFan]

Yes, Miles Wolff came true. The city agreed on Wednesday night to lease Lynx Stadium to a Can-Am team. Baseball fans here are jumping with joy as it appeared it wasn't going to happen a month ago.

Strange there is yet no official news on the Can-Am league website.

Now as for the Grays, my understanding is that there was a dispersal draft early in November as it seemed Ottawa would not be joining the league. I haven't heard anything about those players being returned to the team that will become Ottawa.

In fact, I had heard that the new management this week would be scrabbling to stock the team with players. Looks like some Lynx employees may stay on board. Not sure about any of them as they might have been let go and some may have found other jobs.

I'm almost certain Lynx GM Kyle Bostwick will be the GM for this team. There was talk about asking former Lynx manager and Ottawa resident Tim Leiper to be the manager.

Being from Ottawa and not far from the stadium and having worked at Lynx stadium, I can find out for those interested.

[summerfan]

Ottawa will open the season up at home.

May 22;vs New Jersey.
May 23:vs New Jersey.
May 24:vs New Jersey.

The fulls schedule should be out this week.

[OttawaBallFan]

Tim Leiper won't be the manager after all. He has a contract to manage in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

[thirdbase]

Glad to see Ottawa will have some baseball next season. The CanAm league will never be the same... I look forward to attend some games at Lynx Stadium and to boo the Quebec City Capitales :mrgreen:

[summerfan]

For this team to work there going to have to run like the 67s.

1)Lots of early starts 12;00 pm-2:00 pm area.

2)Some family promos.KIds get in free and so on.

3)$1 menus days this is a huge hit for the 67s.

[OttawaBallFan]

SummerFan, I don't know if the time of the game has any effect on attendance. Checking the 2007 schedule, every Sunday game was at 1:05. Of 11 Saturday games, 5 started at 6:05 and the rest at 1:05. I can check the attendance of these games to see if people seemed to prefer one over the other.

The Lynx had promos going such as $1 hot dog days. Minor and independant league baseball teams are known for promotional days almost every game so I expect to see many of them. Maybe try some different promos than the Lynx who seemed to have the same ones every year. The one that was different in 2007 was having the Philly Phanatic. The kids and I really enjoyed that one.

I went to the stadium today. I learned the Lynx let go most of the full-time staff soon after the end of the season. Only Lorraine in the front desk remains and she is the first and only employee of our new team. While I thought Kyle Bostwick had remained a little longer, he went back home to Vermont months ago. That apparently was the plan all along once the Lynx season ended.

A surprise this morning was seeing and meeting Miles Wolff. I thanked him for all his efforts on behalf of all Ottawa baseball fans. He was just as surprised as everybody else last week when the city gave the go-ahead.

As you can imagine, they are very busy. It is after all only the first week. Those looking full-time jobs will have to wait until January as they are still determining theirs needs and I guess budget. Mr. Wolff's priorities are to find a GM, a manager and an owner.

Things are starting to roll.

[Minor League Man]

Well, will they be the Lynx? If not, will the stadium be renamed?

That's what I'm curious about...

[summerfan]

SummerFan, I don't know if the time of the game has any effect on attendance. Checking the 2007 schedule, every Sunday game was at 1:05. Of 11 Saturday games, 5 started at 6:05 and the rest at 1:05. I can check the attendance of these games to see if people seemed to prefer one over the other.

The Lynx had promos going such as $1 hot dog days. Minor and independant league baseball teams are known for promotional days almost every game so I expect to see many of them. Maybe try some different promos than the Lynx who seemed to have the same ones every year. The one that was different in 2007 was having the Philly Phanatic. The kids and I really enjoyed that one.

I went to the stadium today. I learned the Lynx let go most of the full-time staff soon after the end of the season. Only Lorraine in the front desk remains and she is the first and only employee of our new team. While I thought Kyle Bostwick had remained a little longer, he went back home to Vermont months ago. That apparently was the plan all along once the Lynx season ended.

A surprise this morning was seeing and meeting Miles Wolff. I thanked him for all his efforts on behalf of all Ottawa baseball fans. He was just as surprised as everybody else last week when the city gave the go-ahead.

As you can imagine, they are very busy. It is after all only the first week. Those looking full-time jobs will have to wait until January as they are still determining theirs needs and I guess budget. Mr. Wolff's priorities are to find a GM, a manager and an owner.

Things are starting to roll.

You may be right about the game times.As for the hot dogs yes i am aware of the that.What the ottawa 67s do is runa $1 menu a few times a year.This includes hot dogs,hamburgers,soft drink,chips.That is the sort of thing would be nice at the ball park.What is miles like in person.I have exchanged a few emails with him and he seems like a great guy.

Minor league man
No i do not think they will be called the lynx.The new team will be running a name the team contest.

[OttawaBallFan]

Minor League Man, no news on a team name. That's not a priority. I also believe they may have a contest. Would certainly drum up interest.

I'm not leaning to calling the new team the Lynx myself. Although I had talked to the Toledo radio guy the last time they were here in June and HE suggested retaining the Lynx name.

As for the stadium name, who cares what it's called. It'll probably remain Lynx Stadium for a while or take on the new team's name.

I only talked to Miles for a couple of minutes but he did seem like a good guy. At least he didn't tell me to get out or be rude and tell me to get out. Kind of tall but then again, I'm short so everyone is tall to me. Carl Kiifner had mentioned in his blog that he was tall (I'd say 6'2 or so) so when he came out, I knew it was him.

As for the times, SummerFan, you were right. Here's what I've been doing for the last hour. I hope you guys find this interesting because I did:


Lynx 2007 attendance on weekends

I've included the temperature and weather conditions as per the official box scores. I thought it might help explain some low attendance figures.

Sat Apr 21, 6:05 1323 (temp about 22)
Sun Apr 22, 1:05 3077 (temp about 20)
Sat Apr 28, 1:05 606 (temp. 10, drizzle)
Sun Apr 29, 1:05 1171 (temp: 10, cloudy)
Sat May 19, 6:05 1640 (temp: 22)
Sun May 20, 1:05 1231 (temp about 16, overcast)
Sat Jun 2, 6:05 2489 (temp: 22, partly cloudy)
Sun Jun 3, 1:05 2167 (temp: 22, sunny)
Sat Jun 16, 1:05 2448 (temp: about 30 (82F), sunny)
Sun Jun 17, 1:05 3093 (temp 25 (77F), partly cloudy)
Sat Jun 30, 6:05 1963 (temp: about 15 (63F), partly cloudy)
Sun Jul 1, 1:05 2297 (temp: 13 (59F), cloudy)
Sat Jul 14, 1:05 1836 (20, cloudy)
Sun Jul 15, 1:05 2026 (19, cloudy
Sat Jul 21, 6:05 1967 (23, clear)
Sun Jul 22, 1:05 3374, (26, sunny)
Sat Aug 4, 1:05 1726 (20, partly cloudy)
Sun Aug 5, 1:05 2529 (20, partly cloudy)
Sat Aug 18, 6:05 2192 (17 (64F), partly cloudy)
Sun Aug 19, 1:05 3365 (17 (64F), partly cloudy)
Sat Sep 1, 1:05 2653 (17 (64F), sunny)
Sun Sep 2, 1:05 4425 (19, sunny)

The June 30 game had a 30 minute delay. I'm assuming it rained.
The July 21 game was a scheduled doubleheader. The DH on Monday July 23 drew 2581 on a sunny 27 degree day. It was a 12:05 start (lots of kids as I recall) so the 6:05 start for a DH may have been a mistake.
The July 22 game was the Expos tribute. I believe it was the 3rd best attendance of season.
The Senators played in New Jersey on April 28, 2nd game of that series.
The Senators played in Buffalo on May 19, 5th and final game of that series.
The Senators played at home on June 2, 3rd game of Stanley Cup finals. Did not seem to affect the turnout all that much.

Average attendance, all games: 1922
Average Saturday games: 1895
Average Sunday games: 2614
Average Saturday games, 1:05 start: 1854
Average Saturday games, 6:05 start: 1929

Surprise. Saturday night games draw slightly better by 72 customers. But there was that 606 in April which brings down the average. Doubling it would bring the 1:05 starts average to 1974. So it does appear that 1:05 starts are better.

Let's do the same for games starting May 19, when the Can-Am starts its season. Numbers in parentheses are +/- against the above numbers:

Average Saturday games: 2102 (+207)
Average Sunday games: 2722 (+827)
Average Saturday games, 1:05 start: 2166 (+312)
Average Saturday games, 6:05 start: 2050 (+121) (-116 versus 1:05 starts)

OK, so 1:05 starts seem to draw slightly better by 5.3%. And Sundays are the best days by far.

[rjw8625]

Average Sunday games: 2722 (+827)


Pierre, great work on this! The figure I've chosen to quote is the most meaningful by far. That would have represented 3rd place out of ten Can-Am League teams last year in attendance.

Hopefully the "more responsive" roster with local talent as Miles put it in his interview w Carl on the CBC can excite an entice a loyal following of at least this number.

Again I'd like to congratulate everyone in Ottawa who is relieved by this announcement. This could be Ottawa on May 22nd (http://www.theelsa.com/Ottawa/DSCF1763.JPG). I hope to see it for myself!

-Bob

[OttawaBallFan]

Thanks RJ. I love to do this kind of stuff.

I just noticed however an error. I mistakenly subtracted the 2722 from the overall average. The line should say:

Average Sunday games: 2722 (+108)

The +827 is the average attendance on a Sunday compared to all days of the week.

SummerFan started a new thread for the team name. I've added my idea to that so let's all meet over there.