The CFL is going back to the Maritimes in 2022, according to a report from TSN’s Dave Naylor.
The latest version of Touchdown Atlantic is set to be played on Saturday, July 16 between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Toronto Argonauts in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Raymond Field, the home of Acadia University, currently has a capacity of roughly 3,000 fans.
The same two teams were scheduled to play the 2020 Touchdown Atlantic game at Huskies Stadium on the campus of Halifax’s Saint Mary’s University. That game was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and will now take place an hour away in much smaller Wolfville.
The contest will be the first CFL game of any type to be played in Nova Scotia since 2005, when the Argos and Hamilton Tiger-Cats played a pre-season game at Huskies Stadium. Moncton, New Brunswick hosted Touchdown Atlantic games in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2019.
Halifax has become the CFL’s favoured spot for expansion, but the league has yet to deliver on the promise of a franchise there since unveiling the marketing for the Atlantic Schooners ahead of the 2018 Grey Cup.
Schooner Sports and Entertainment, the ownership group led by Gary Drummond, managed to secure $20 million in government funding to build a stadium in Halifax and had been hopeful to begin play in 2022, but COVID-19 caused the city to discontinue the stadium funding project in 2021.
While the project is firmly on the backburner, SSE has said they are still interested in pursuing a stadium deal when the timing allows. During his 2021 state of the league address, commissioner Randy Ambrosie said that conversations continue on expansion, but gave no timeline for a team to start play.
