The excitement is building as Moncton prepares to host Touchdown Atlantic on Saturday.
The Montreal Alouettes will take on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in a regular-season game but the city is also hoping to score.
“Tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day. The place is going to be full,” says Frederic Gionet of Enterprise Greater Moncton.
“It’s people spending money in the area, you are talking millions of dollars of stimulus activity, or economic activity in the area.”
Many in the business community have high hopes for economic spinoffs, with bars and restaurants topping the list.
“Well, we are seeing a lot of football fans leading up to the event and we suspect that it is going to be quite busy on Saturday,” says Kevin Parker, who manages a brewpub.
The Canadian Football League says there are roughly 500 tickets still available. They were hoping to sell 20,000 tickets but demand hasn’t been what it was in the previous two Touchdown Atlantic games.hopes
This year, they dropped the number of seats down to 16,000.
Despite the slower ticket sales, the city is still hoping the game will mean $6 million in economic spinoffs.
With files from CTV Atlantic's David Bell
