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The Ottawa Redblacks’ new stadium at Lansdowne Park will be called TD Place

The Ottawa Redblacks are slowly becoming more of an actual CFL team: they have a GM, a coach, players, and now, a named place to play. According to The Ottawa Sun's Tim Baines, the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (which owns the Redblacks, junior hockey's Ottawa 67s and soccer's Ottawa Fury) is set to announce this week that the new stadium in Lansdowne Park (replacing the old Frank Clair Stadium) will be known as TD Place. (Update: Barre Campbell adds that the Lansdowne Park name for the whole area will stay though, and there will be a statue of famed CFL coach Frank Clair.) From Baines' piece:

Say goodbye to Lansdowne Park -- soon enough it'll be known as TD Place.

The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group will announce this week it has come to an agreement to rename its brand-spanking-new sports complex -- which will be the home of the RedBlacks, Fury FC and 67's.

The naming rights are substantial -- likely more than $1 million per year in an agreement that's expected to last more than 10 years. It's another big bank making a splash on the local sports scene, on the heels of Canadian Tire swooping in and replacing Scotiabank as the face of the building that houses the Senators in Kanata.

Still under construction, the stadium formerly known as Lansdowne is expected to be ready for the RedBlacks to open their CFL home schedule sometime in July. The North American Soccer League's Fury FC will begin their spring schedule at Carleton University, then move over to the stadium in the summer. The 67's, who have played their last two seasons out of Canadian Tire Centre, will return to the Civic Centre next season.

That's a big naming-rights deal, and a long-term one, so it should give the Redblacks some financial stability, which could be crucial early on. It's also a solid name; while it can't quite approach Tim Hortons Field for hoserism content, it's tough to go wrong with a name that also works as a touchdown abbreviation. (Yes, it works for the Toronto Dominion Bank as well, but hey, football synergy!) At least it's not another name we already have elsewhere in the country, too; the main other sports facility the bank sponsors is the TD Garden in Boston, although they do have smaller ones in New Jersey, South Carolina and Nebraska. We'll see just how many TDs the Redblacks score at the new field, but the sponsorship agreement they've signed looks like a promising result.