Canadian Football League Commissioner Mark Cohon announced this week the location of the first CFL expansion team since 1993.
“The league governors have completed the process of examining the many proposals that were submitted,” Cohon stated on national sports network TSN.
“After much deliberation I am honoured to award the newest CFL franchise to the Charlottetown Greenies in Prince Edward Island.”
The new team was expected to move into the Eastern Division of the league to bring an even match of five teams to both the East and West but in a typical Canadian move, the league chose to put the Greenies in the Western Division.
The team nickname is in reference to the historic Anne of Green Gables fictitious character from the novel of the same name by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. The story of Anne Shirley, published in 1908, was set in Prince Edward Island.
Cohon says there were two submissions from interests in Eastern Canada and while there was concern over the smaller overall demographics in the Atlantic Provinces, CFL governors were sold on the positive publicity the Charlottetown franchise could generate.
“Our last expansion was what I’d call a real football fail,” Cohon stated.
“I can’t for the life of me understand why the league ever considered the first expansion (back in 1993) into the States.”
Cohon was referring to a three-year process that started when the San Francisco Gold Miners became the first American franchise to join the clearly Canadian league. That expansion introduced a total of six American teams to the league with all of them folding after the ‘CFL Experiment’ was complete.
The Charlottetown franchise launched a ‘name the team’ contest with local elementary school students and the Greenies name was the overall winner following online voting.
“I would have been okay with the team being called the Annie’s,” one Charlottetown resident posted online.
“I’m just glad I’m not the team mascot. I mean, what is a greenie anyway?”
