MONTREAL -- The expansion of Percival Molson Stadium looks to be a success, but now the Montreal Alouettes must solve another problem -- finding a permanent place to practice.

The defending Grey Cup champions are the only CFL club that does not have its own practice field. They waste up to an hour a day busing across town from their underground base at Olympic Stadium to whatever field they can find, most often at Concordia University.

Teams have their players only 4.5 hours per day for meetings and practice under the collective bargaining agreement with the players association.

Some wonder how they've reached the championship game the past two seasons while living like nomads in their own city.

"We bus every day and we miss out on about 50 minutes of practice time every single day," slotback Ben Cahoon said this week. "That's ridiculous, frankly."

On Thursday night, the Alouettes played their first official game at Molson Stadium since it was expanded by 5,000 seats to a capacity of 25,012, a $29 million project they say was necessary to make a profit.

It was a second major overhaul of the 95-year-old facility, which was a crumbling ruin with trees growing through the grandstands when they first used it for a playoff game in 1997 because the Big O had been booked for a U2 concert. Now it has become an attractive downtown venue.

But the stadium is owned by McGill University, and the Alouettes still keep their main locker and meeting rooms in the cramped, windowless basement of Olympic Stadium.

Until 2008, the Alouettes had use of an adjacent outdoor field, but that patch of land was handed over to the Montreal Impact when it built a large, privately financed soccer complex next to the Big O that includes the 13,000-seat Saputo Stadium.

The badly deteriorated practice field is not being used by either club this season as it goes through a remake.

Alouettes president Larry Smith said solving the practice puzzle has become a priority and that a solution may be in sight, but likely not until next season.

"We all recognize that we need to have a practice field," said Smith. "It was kind of a surprise when the field we thought we had was given away to the Impact, but the Impact have been very good to us and the city of Montreal as well, and I think we'll find a solution."

"We hope we have it decided by the end of the season, so we'll have something implemented by next year."

It will likely involve renting the field from the Impact, if the soccer team goes ahead with plans to give the pitch an artificial surface. The soccer team may be looking for renters to "monetarize" the facility, Smith said.

The Alouettes had talked to at least two local communities about building an all-in-one facility they could move into, but that appears to have fallen through.

The likely option now is to expand and renovate their space at Olympic Stadium, where they have trouble squeezing all the big bodies into some of the tiny meeting rooms.

It is a far cry from the luxurious training centre hockey's Montreal Canadiens have in suburban Brossard, Que., which includes two ice rinks and an indoor soccer field, but Smith lamented that "we're not on that scale."

Meanwhile, the Alouettes are expected to deal with another priority any day now by signing general manager Jim Popp to a long-term contract.

Popp has been the team's only general manager since it was reborn in 1996 after a 10-year hiatus. His ability to stack the club with talent has led to two Grey Cups and seven appearances in the championship game.

His teams have never missed the playoffs and have had only one losing season -- 8-10 in 2007 while in a rebuilding phase during one of Popp's two stints as head coach.

Popp's contract is to expire at the end of this season. Uncertainty over his future caused him to put his house up for sale and move his family -- he is married with six Canadian-born children -- back to his native North Carolina in the off-season.

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/story/?id=328310

Larry, Larry, Larry

Can't they use a CEGEP/HighSchool near Big O, that has a football field ??

Le stade Loyola est bien mais c'est vraiment trop loin du stade olympique, c'est chiant pour les journalistes qui doivent traverser la ville au complet pour avoir leurs quotes...

Quand les Als ont signe leur nouveau bail. Ils pouvait pas negocier l'utilisation de leurs vestiaires et terrain pour pratiquer ?

Ca fait vraiment dur...

Je viens de checker par Google earth (satellite map)...

Il y a 1 terrain de foot coin Notre-Dame Est & Avenue Letourneux (presque sur les quai du Port), c'est meme pas 5 min en auto du Big O...

Isnt that a public park?

Why can't they practice inside the Big O ? They don't like to practice in the rain anyway.

They used to practice inside, during bad weather and when they needed to practice with crowd noise

Does anyone sense another request for public funds

After what they just gave to Saputo, who can blame them.

The 50 min's a day drive and What constitutes practice?
Does the travel time count against the four and a half hour practice CBA agreement?

What constitutes practice? When the whole team is togeather?
What if half the team did one thing and the half did something else... Sounds stupid but you now what I'm sayin'

Just for fun argument sake.

Four and a half hours seems off.
We all know the road trip would have it's repercussions, but only one practice before home opener, or any game for that matter? hmmnn
Can you bank hours of "Official practice time". So let's say the unpredictable, a lightning snow flurry hits. Can you bank those lost hours for another day?
There seems to be some strange loopholes in the CFL-CBA. Maybe they should find one?
Just a thought or two.

Oh yeah did our defense lay a hurt on or what!!
I think it might have started when Jamel layed the boom down on an Eskimo two weeks ago.
The past identity of this team maybe finess, but it seems like more sandpaper is involved this time around.

Cheers all.

Je crois que les alouettes vont bientôt aller s’entraine au cégep marie Victorin il a un tout nouveau complexe intérieur qui viens juste être construit et on parle d’un retour d’une équipe pour le cégep et si on y va dans le même sens ils vont construire une bâtisse pour le vestiaire et je crois que les alouettes on tous a gagné a associé avec le cégep a long terme il a tous a leur disposition sur le campus . Les alouettes ont été visité les lieux et ils sont très intéressé a allé faire un tour, il reste a voir s’ils vont en faire leur nid de pratique.

http://www.collegemv.qc.ca/fr-CA/Accuei ... index.aspx
voici la carte routière

J’aimerais bien que notre journaliste pose la question a l’organisation sur le cit j’aimerais bien sa voir leur version sur se mega complexe