With the Ottawa City Council poised to approve a proposal for a renovation of Frank Clair Stadium instead of funding a new MLS stadium, Eugene Melnyk vows to continue the fight.

Melnyk, the owner of the Ottawa Senators, wants to see the city pay for a new MLS stadium near his hockey team's home. He seems a little mystified that the city would rather pay for a renovation of Frank Clair Stadium -- which will bring in more than $100 million in investments to the Lansdowne Place area -- than totally fund his stadium, which would bring in zero in investments to Kanata, though Melnyk argues any expansion fees and startup costs are the equivalent:

Making this new stadium and sports team a success would include a significant personal investment of $65 million - as well as support from the City and other levels of government. I don't make investment decisions lightly. Over the past year, my team has exhaustively reviewed the business model for the soccer franchise and stadium in Kanata and I am completely convinced it is a superior investment from both a business and fan-base perspective, and also from the City's perspective.

I am confident in the proposal and will still stand behind it as we wait for Ottawa City Council to vote tomorrow. The city has proposed a new motion for Wednesday, offering less than what is required to make the Kanata stadium viable. I respect the attempt by Council to find another solution. There are many aspects of our proposal that can and could be negotiated. However, the Motion as proposed is void of any support of Council that most certainly would be required to be successful with the other levels of government and with Major League Soccer. We are confirming to Council that this motion is not workable and, in our view, has no chance of success.

We will respect whatever decision the City Council comes to on Wednesday, but want to reiterate that we believe our proposal is forward looking, provides a solution for both Lansdowne and a new stadium in Kanata, and is the most cost-effective proposal for the city and its taxpayers.

He also has a word for those who criticize his decision not to work with the potential CFL team owners on a joint-use facility:

We thoroughly reviewed the business case and logistics of fielding a successful CFL franchise and MLS franchise at the same time in Kanata -- and to be frank, it just didn't add up.

Times are uncertain now -- teams' owners around the world are being forced to sell prized assets -- and although I love calculated risks, the combined CFL and MLS franchise model just didn't work. After careful thought, I declined the opportunity to put both teams in the same stadium. The risk was too high -- and I was not prepared to put the stability of the whole organization on the line for a last-minute deal -- however tempting it was.

In conversations over the last number of days, some have suggested my declining of this offer was stubborn, ill-conceived or an attempt to say "my way or the highway." It's just not true. I am a firm believer that compromise is often what is needed to resolve difficult problems. So when we were presented with alternatives over the past two weeks, we reviewed them very carefully. Regardless of the motivations that are being assigned to this important business decision, I want to say clearly for the record that if there was any way to make any of the compromise proposals work, we would have done it. There just wasn't. It's really just that simple.

We just don't buy it. There surely could be revenue shares that would allow two teams appealing to two different clienteles to thrive. Melnyk's real calculation was that he had enough political juice to win the day -- and that was a miscalculation.