A A

Anthony LeBlanc has probably endured some quips attempting to link his two latest business ventures.

Maybe Mile High Stadium would make an appropriate name for the home of the Canadian Football League team he and his business partners want to bring to Halifax because, of course, LeBlanc was earlier this year named chief executive officer of Modern Leaf, an upscale Toronto-based cannabis retail company.

“I like that,” LeBlanc said with a laugh.

But LeBlanc is all business and very serious about both his undertakings.

“I’m your traditional entrepreneur,” said LeBlanc, the former co-owner and president of the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League who also served as executive in charge of global sales at Research in Motion (now BlackBerry).

LeBlanc will bring that business-first attitude to Halfax for a CFL news conference Wednesday. He will be joined at the podium by league commissioner Randy Ambrosie.

LeBlanc wants to set the record straight on what he calls “a bit of misinformation” about the $190-million, 24,000-seat stadium that he and key Maritime Football Ltd. partners Gary Drummond and Bruce Bowser propose for Shannon Park in Dartmouth.

What goes into a name

The ownership group will also be airing out some potential names Wednesday.

“We don’t know the best word to use,” LeBlanc said of engaging the public in naming the team. “Contest probably isn’t it because there is no prize at the end. We just want to gauge what the community thinks. Obviously, there are a couple of front-runners that people have bandied about and some that we’ve looked at that don’t really work. We want to give people the opportunity to write in susggestions — there might be some we haven’t thought of.”

LeBlanc did confirm the geographical part of the team name.

“It will be the Atlantic blank, it won’t be Halifax or Nova Scotia,” LeBlanc said.

The name Atlantic Schooners might be a good bet. That team name was announced in 1982 for a conditional CFL franchise in the Halifax area that did not come to fruition because of a lack of stadium funding. LeBlanc and company purchased and registered the Atlantic Schooners name late last year.

LeBlanc’s group hopes to acquire its conditional franchise from the league in the near future. From there, it will push to recruit about a dozen founding sponsors and hire a director of football operations.

Maritime Football Ltd., is also expected to announce a season ticket drive Wednesday.

Exact dollar values are yet to be determined but it is expected that fans can commit to a season ticket for less than a $100 deposit, which will be refunded if the team never hits the field. The goal is to get a commitment for at least half the seats to be sold as season tickets, LeBlanc said. A single ticket will range from $25 to $30 in the upper deck to several hundred dollars for club seating, which will include food.

LeBlanc said the separate Modern Leaf enterprise “has proven to be an interesting market.

“What drew me to it was the fact that it was more educational focused, which I thought was very important with the legalization of recreational (cannabis).”

Drummond, one of LeBlanc’s key business partners dating back to their Coyotes days, is also his link to the cannabis business.

“His son, Preston, started a cannabis venture a year-and-a-half ago and essentially asked me to help him out on the business side. I’m helping him get the company to the next level, so to speak,” he said. “There will be some retail in a couple of the provinces that have private retailers. We are finalizing stores in Alberta, we’re working with some partners in Saskatchewan and we are looking at Ontario. But it has a more educational bent to it than others.”

RELATED: