Hamilton will get a pro soccer team by 2018, insider says

A local soccer insider says Canada is getting a new premiere soccer league, and that Hamilton will be home to one of the teams.

John McGrane, a Canadian soccer hall-of-famer and 25-time national team member, revealed the news while proposing a bubble dome over Tim Hortons Field stadium to city councillors on Wednesday.

McGrane said there will be an announcement in "three to four months" from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, which holds the exclusive rights to professional soccer at the new stadium.

The new league is not a done deal, said McGrane, who wants to build the soccer dome with Ticats owner Bob Young.

But the Hamiltonteam would be playing out of the stadium by 2018, the deadline by which the Tiger-Cats have to field a professional soccer team.

Under the stadium lease agreement with the city, the Ticats have until the end of March to use their exclusive rights to soccer at the stadium, said Gerry Davis, general manager of public works.

Davis said there have been false starts with professional soccer in Hamilton in the past. "We'll wait until it's signed," he said.

But McGrane saidit's imminent with or without the bubble dome, which he pitched to city councillors at a general issues committee meeting.

The dome would not only house the new team, he said,butshow commitment to the new Canadian premiere league.

"This proposed dome wouldn't be being built if a professional soccer team wasn't a cornerstone," he said."The dome would not be built without the advent of a Canadian premier league."

The Ticats andMcGrane would pay to build theproposed dome, which would contribute $100,000 per year to a fund to replenish the stadium's turf.

City councillorsdecided they needed more information, such as details around how much revenue domes generate and whether the job of building the dome should go to the open market.

At least two other dome suppliers presented to the committee expressing an interest in the project.

McGrane said afterward that the professional soccer team will still happen whether the dome does or not, or whether another company supplies the dome.