On a lot of levels, the plan drawn up by the CFL, the City of Hamilton and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and Museum's governance committee for the future of the Hall makes substantial sense. As Scott Radley wrote last year, the current situation (the Hall residing in its downtown Hamilton location) is untenable for the long term. The proposal that's been fronted has many points in its favour; it would see the most essential part of the current Hall (the busts of inductees) transplanted to a new "studio" in the Ticats' home of Tim Hortons Field where it would hopefully draw more attention, it would transfer fiscal responsibility for the Hall solely to the league, and it would potentially enable more fans from across the country to view some of the Hall's impressive artifacts, as hundreds of the artifacts currently in the main museum would be freed up for travelling exhibitions. It's not surprising that the league, city staff and the governance committee all seem to be in support of this; it looks like a generally-strong plan, it has significant benefits for all of them, and continuing the status quo indefinitely isn't really an option. However, there are some questions about this plan that still need to be answered, and there are some potential drawbacks to it.



One of the more concerning changes here is the apparent decision to completely split up the busts and the artifacts. If the Hall was merely moving to Tim Hortons Field in its present or close-to-present form, it would be hard to object to that, but the league's release only says they plan to "feature the centerpiece of the Hall of Fame, the member busts of the inductees to a modern new fan accessible “studio” at Tim Horton’s Field [sic]." Putting the Hall at the Ticats' stadium makes a lot of sense, and should help get many more people interested in it. However, while the busts of inductees may be the Hall's most popular attraction, separating them from the historical artifacts of the game is concerning. The Hall is valuable because it reflects the incredible history of Canadian football, which is about much more than just star players and executives. This plan as described would seem to almost eliminate the museum part of the Hall, at least at a fixed location in Hamilton that's easy for visitors to check out.

Could some element of the museum experience beyond the busts be preserved at Tim Hortons Field? Possibly. It's notable that many stadiums around North America and the world include Halls of Fame and museums, including B.C. Place (the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame and Museum), Lambeau Field (the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame), Yankee Stadium (the New York Yankees Museum), and Old Trafford (the Manchester United Museum); all of those have dedicated significant space to museum-style exhibits. Of course, it may be more difficult to do that at Tim Hortons Field considering that it's already been built, and perhaps a small "studio" that can only hold the busts is all that's possible. That alone would probably still be worth doing; at the least, it would get the busts out in front of more people. If there's any way to have some of the historical artifacts on regular display there too, though, that would be much better; it would keep the centralized museum part of the Hall's legacy intact, it would present some context as well as just busts of great players, and it would help keep Canadian football's profile up there with other Canadian halls of fame and museums (such as the hockey one).

Beyond that, the idea of making more artifacts available for touring exhibitions sounds good at first. Sure, it would be fantastic to see some of the material in the Hall of Fame displayed before fans in Regina, Edmonton and other CFL cities (and beyond). The key question here is how regular these exhibitions will be, though. The CFHOF has done plenty of these before, but there haven't been a lot of highly-publicized ones recently. Perhaps that changes with more CFL involvement; maybe the league decides that putting on travelling exhibits to get its history in front of its fans is something worth spending money on. The key question here should be if there will be more or less overall public access to these artifacts following the move, though. If this helps get the CFL's history to more fans, awesome. If it means that the league's artifacts are kept in hidden storage apart from special occasions, that's not as great.

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