The powers-that-be of the Vancouver political scene killed baseball in this city more than once over the years.

As recently as 2000, the AAA Champion Vancouver Canadians wanted the right to expand capacity at Nat Bailey Stadium, so that they could maybe turn a profit once in a while, but the wishes of a couple of bathrobe-wearing ‘get off my lawn, you rat bastard kids’ types won the day, and the team left for a city that understood their social, cultural, and financial value.

Through divine intervention (and some very bloody hard work), the new owners of the C’s managed to get a long term lease on Nat Bailey Stadium, some improvements to the place, some funding, and a future over the last few years, but while they lucked out, another sporting group in this city is having its head booted repeatedly as it tries without success to do the unthinkable - build a new stadium, on their OWN LAND, with their OWN MONEY.

The Vancouver Whitecaps run a good sporting organization. They draw decent crowds to an old stadium that is about a decade past its best-before date, they get good press, they get results on the field, and they have the MLS knocking on their door, inviting them to be a part of North America’s premier soccer league.

As part of their planning for future success, they want to build a 15k seat stadium on Vancouver’s downtown waterfront. And they want to pay for it themselves. No public financing. No no-interest loans. They just want city council to say "yes, we like the cut of your jib, you can do this now."

Alas, that seems to be something akin to pulling teeth in a town in which the rights of crackheads to steal your car stereo, sleep on million-dollar real estate, and do drugs in peace, seem to trump the rights of just about anyone and everyone else engaging in law-abiding, socially-aware activities.

From the Vancouver Courier:

The Greg Kertfoot-ballers have been trying since 2003 to build a stadium in their namesake city. First near Pacific Central Station,
then most recently on the Central Waterfront where their tech millionaire Kerfoot bought $20 million in land.

A well-funded and divisive opposition campaign in 2006 forced the Whitecaps to rethink plans to build on a podium over railway tracks. Then TransLink vetoed the idea to build over the SeaBus terminal. "No thanks," they said.

The Whitecaps have made another offer to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority for a land swap, which will undoubtedly be kicked back and forth between the federal Crown corporation’s offices and Parliament Hill and translated to French and back again before a decision is made.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment got federal and provincial subsidies to build BMO Field in Toronto. The Whitecaps aren’t cap-in-hand. They just want some federal, provincial and civic decisions to go their way.

Word. What the hell is with this city and their lack of assistance to the Whitecaps? In an era where, across North America, pro sporting teams extort millions (even billions) from local authorities to build stadiums that will provide income, culture, tourism and entertainment to the city for decades, how can it be that this city is so mind-numbingly bass ackward that it wouldn’t be crawling across flaming rivers of broken glass to get this deal done?

A beautiful new stadium over a railyard, in a part of town called Crackville by the locals, at no cost to the public purse? How do you say no to that? How do you even take seriously people who ‘worry that it would bring a bad element’ to a part of Vancouver in which you have more chance of scoring an eightball of cocaine than finding a working payphone?

But hey, credit the Whitecaps for rolling with it and coming up with an alternate plan - "we’ll build over the water", say the Whitecaps, "we’ll just need to shift the Seabus terminal, at our expense, a little further along…

But NO, says Translink. That would involve us not having our heads up our asses. Take your stadium, which would result in tons more people using our transit system, which is our stated aim as an organization, and begone! 

What’s it going to take for a wealthy sports fan to build a stadium in this city? Blood? Will he have to sacrifice his first born? Will he have to name it Sam Sullivan Stadium? (Hey, that’s not bad - he could put the thing on wheels and just move it to wherever the hell the powers that be decide the team should play from week to week.)

If it weren’t for the ‘but what will the crackheads think’ brigade on Vancouver’s City Council, this stadium could have already been completed, and the Whitecaps would be selling tickets for their first season in MLS. Instead, you’ve got an organization that should be one of Vancouver’s jewels in the crown starting to wonder if it might be worthwhile to find somewhere else to do business.

Mr Kerfoot - take it from me; come to The Nat and do lunch, bring your architects, and repeat after me, "Multi-purpose stadiums make good sense…"