Touchdown Atlantic (

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

: ''Touché Atlantique'') is a series of neutral site

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 c ...

games played in the

maritime provinces The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% o ...

of Canada. In 2003, the league had struck a committee to examine the feasibility of adding a tenth team, with the leading candidate cities being

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

and Halifax. Before the suspension of the Renegades, league commissioner Tom Wright had indicated that Halifax was the leading candidate for expansion. With the success of Touchdown Atlantic 2010, Moncton was also considered for CFL expansion.Moncton CFL franchise possible: commissioner
/ref> No Touchdown Atlantic was played from 2014 to 2018, but it returned in 2019 due to the renewed interest in an Atlantic expansion team.

Exhibition games

Prior to the official Touchdown Atlantic series,

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, hosted a pair of exhibition games. In 1986, the

Winnipeg Blue Bombers The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West division. They play their home games at IG Fie ...

defeated 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 Cana ...

35–10 at Canada Games Stadium before a sellout crowd of 11,463 fans. The following year, the Alouettes returned to the Port City and lost 14–13 to the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fie ...

; the Alouettes would fold a week later. An exhibition game between the Ottawa Renegades and Montreal was held in Quebec City in 2003 at PEPS Stadium, with the Alouettes winning 54–23 in front of 10,358. The first game of the Touchdown Atlantic series was an exhibition pre-season match played in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at Huskies Stadium in June 2005. The game, between the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the CFL East Division, East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based i ...

and the

, ended in a 16–16 tie. The game was to gauge Halifax's support for a potential CFL expansion team, which would likely be named the Schooners. Temporary seating was added to boost the capacity, and a sellout crowd of 11,148 attended. It was also used by the league to test its

instant replay Instant replay or action replay is a video reproduction of something that recently occurred which was both shot and broadcast live. The video, having already been shown live, is replayed in order for viewers to see again and analyze what had j ...

challenge system which was implemented in the 2006 CFL season. A second game was to be played on June 3, 2006, at Halifax's Huskies Stadium, with temporary seating for a capacity of 11,000 fans. This game was canceled after the suspension of the Ottawa Renegades, who were scheduled to play the

Regular season games

In October 2009, it was officially announced that the

Edmonton Eskimos The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division and plays their home games at the Brick Field at Comm ...

would face the Toronto Argonauts in

Moncton Moncton (; ) is the most populous city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The city has earned the nickname "Hub City" because of ...

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 ...

, on September 26, 2010, in the first regular season game in Atlantic Canada. That game was referred to as Touchdown Atlantic. The game was played at the new Moncton Stadium on the campus of

Université de Moncton The Université de Moncton is a Canadian francophone university in New Brunswick. It includes campuses in Edmundston, Moncton, and Shippagan. The university was founded in 1963 following the recommendations of the royal commission on highe ...

in front of a reported sellout crowd of 20,725. Tickets went on sale to the general public on March 25, 2010, with a one-day pre-sale being conducted the day before. After 32 hours of being up for sale, the

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Touchdown Atlantic was announced as a sellout on March 25, 2010. The Eskimos won the game 24–6 thanks to their 247 interception return yards on six interceptions, the second most interception return yards in CFL history. A 2011 Touchdown Atlantic game, somewhat erroneously known as Touchdown Atlantic II, took place during the

2011 CFL season The 2011 CFL season was the 58th season of modern-day Canadian football. Officially, it was the 54th season of the Canadian Football League. The complete schedule was released on February 18 and featured the defending Grey Cup champion Montreal ...

, again in Moncton. The

were the designated home team and faced the

Calgary Stampeders The Calgary Stampeders are a professional Canadian football team based in Calgary, Alberta. The Stampeders compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The club plays its home games at McMahon Stadium and are the third-o ...

on September 25, 2011, at

Moncton Stadium Medavie Blue Cross Stadium (french: Stade Croix-Bleue Medavie), formerly Moncton Stadium (french: Stade Moncton), is a track and field stadium on the campus of the Université de Moncton in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, built to host the IAAF 201 ...

. Hamilton won the game, 55–36. No Touchdown Atlantic was held in 2012. The 2013 edition of Touchdown Atlantic featured the Tiger-Cats hosting the

in Moncton on September 21, 2013. The game was held in Moncton due to their stadium in Hamilton being replaced; although Moncton attempted to have the Tiger-Cats play the whole season in Moncton, the team opted to only play one game there and have the rest of the season closer to Hamilton (specifically

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wel ...

). Hamilton won the game 28–26. No Touchdown Atlantic was held from 2014 to 2018 as the league lost momentum for the event. However, there was renewed interest in football in the Maritimes when a group of businessmen began discussions with the league for a franchise based in Halifax. While a stadium would still need to be built in Halifax, the discussions were legitimate enough for the league to encourage a season ticket campaign and led to the naming of the team as the Atlantic Schooners (the same as the proposed team from 1982). To promote interest in the event, a Touchdown Atlantic game was announced for 2019 with the event being hosted by this same group, Schooners Sports and Entertainment (SSE). The Argonauts were designated the home team and the Alouettes the visiting team. TSN's Dave Naylor reported that SSE was considering Halifax,

, and

Antigonish, Nova Scotia , settlement_type = Town , image_skyline = File:St Ninian's Cathedral Antigonish Spring.jpg , image_caption = St. Ninian's Cathedral , image_flag = Flag of Antigonish.p ...

as potential game sites, with Moncton being the eventual selection. Unlike the 2010-2013 versions, Moncton Stadium was not expanded to host the game, and a sellout crowd of only 10,126 watched as the Alouettes defeated the

(hosting the game in Moncton to avoid a short-notice conversion after

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hosted a home game the night before) on August 25, 2019. On January 23, 2020, it was announced that the

Saskatchewan Roughriders The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a professional Canadian football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Roughriders compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division. The Roughriders were founded in ...

would play the Argonauts in a Touchdown Atlantic game that would be the first regular season game to be played in Halifax. The game was scheduled to be played at Huskies Stadium on the campus of Saint Mary's University where temporary seating would have brought the seating capacity up to 10,000. However, the game was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. While no game was scheduled in

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due to the pandemic, it was confirmed on March 24, 2022, that the

would host the

Wolfville Wolfville is a Canadian town in the Annapolis Valley, Kings County, Nova Scotia, located about northwest of the provincial capital, Halifax Regional Municipality, Halifax. The town is home to Acadia University and Landmark East School. The tow ...

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Raymond Field Raymond Field is a multi-purpose stadium in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. It is the home of the Acadia University Axemen football and soccer teams as well as the Acadia Acadia (french: link=no, Acadie) was a colony of New France in northeaster ...

for the first Touchdown Atlantic game to be played in Wolfville. CFL Commissioner

Randy Ambrosie Randy Ambrosie (born March 16, 1963) is the 14th and current commissioner of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Ambrosie played Canadian football professionally as an offensive guard for the CFL's Calgary Stampeders, Toronto Argonauts, and Edmo ...

stated in December 2022 that the league was considering hosting the game outside of Atlantic Canada from 2024. Langford, British Columbia (part of the

Greater Victoria Greater Victoria (also known as the Greater Victoria Region) is located in British Columbia, Canada, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. It is usually defined as the thirteen municipalities of the Capital Regional District (CRD) o ...

) has been discussed as a potential location for the game beginning in 2025.

Potential for an Atlantic expansion team

The initial success of the Touchdown Atlantic games placed Moncton in the position of frontrunner for a Canadian Football League franchise in Atlantic Canada, according to commissioner

Mark Cohon Mark Steven Cohon, (born March 16, 1966) is the chairman of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS). He was also the 12th commissioner of the Canadian Football League. The son of McDonald's Canada founder George Cohon, he was ...

. Moncton is also well positioned because of its centralized location in the region; a team based in Moncton would represent all three maritime provinces due to the region's small population. Moncton officials negotiated to temporarily host the

for the 2013 season while

Ivor Wynne Stadium Ivor Wynne Stadium (formerly Civic Stadium) was a Canadian football stadium located at the corner of Balsam and Beechwood avenues, two blocks west of Gage Avenue North in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The stadium was the home of the Hamilton Tiger ...

is demolished and Tim Hortons Field is under construction. However, citing a desire to be closer to home, the Tiger-Cats announced they would play eight of their nine home games at nearby

, with the ninth being the Touchdown Atlantic contest. By 2015, the potential for an expansion to the Maritimes had once again faded, in part due to Cohon's resignation and the failure to sell out the 2013 contest.CFL may take a time out from Moncton games, Cohon says
''CBC''. Retrieved February 16, 2015. Focus by this point had shifted to the Northern Kickoff contest at

Shell Place Shell Place is a sports, recreation and mixed use complex in Fort McMurray, Alberta, which includes SMS Equipment Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium and performance venue, Legacy Dodge Field, a softball and baseball tournament facility, as well as a ...

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; it was here, rather than in Moncton, that the league chose to host regular season games that had been displaced because of the

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. Negotiations to bring a CFL team to the Maritimes resumed under the commission of

in 2017, with Halifax and Moncton considered as potential homes for the team.

List of games

References

External links