Toronto the terrible
The country’s biggest city is home to some of its biggest failures. A look at a sad sports scene,
Other Canadian cities get to have fun with their professional sports teams. In Ottawa, fans rained hamburgers onto the ice as previously unknown goaltender Andrew (Hamburglar) Hammond powered the Senators on an improbable run to the playoffs. In Calgary, police have been trying to calm mobs of celebrating Flames fans, with Staff Sgt. Steve Ellefson offering this piece of advice through the Calgary Herald: “People need to wear pants and not set off fireworks by the gas station.” Toronto cannot be counted among those happy cities. On Tuesday, it was Toronto Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri, trying to convince reporters that his team’s postseason collapse did not represent a “doomsday” situation. Technically, he is correct. Calamity has become ingrained in Toronto sports over the last two decades, as obvious on the landscape as the CN Tower. Sports reporter Sean Fitz-Gerald takes a look at the depths of that despair:
TORONTO ARGONAUTS
They are the only major team in the city to win a league championship this century, doing it twice, in 2004 and again in 2012. The Argos have fielded some capable teams over the last 15 years — including one stint with perhaps the best defence in history — and have a universally beloved ambassador: Michael (Pinball) Clemons. The problem with the Argos has generally been off the field. They went bankrupt in 2003 when their New Yorkbased owner stopped paying the bills, raising concern the franchise would fold. It has not folded, but neither has it found solid ground. As of this writing, the Argos were still facing the prospect of homelessness. Their lease at Rogers Centre expires in 2017, and a move into BMO Field, a soccer-specific stadium by the shore of Lake Ontario, is likely their last hope. It has been reported BCE Inc. and MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum are in talks to buy the team from owner David Braley, but nothing has been announced, because nothing is ever easy with the Argos.
TORONTO RAPTORS
They were supposed to be the good team, an island of success in the roiling sea of failure in Toronto sports. When they made the playoffs last year, the Raptors turned a cul-de-sac outside Air Canada Centre into a nightly basketball revival, with fans crammed into what became known as “Jurassic Park.” Toronto lost, but it seemed like a noble loss, a blocked shot away from winning in Game 7 at home. This year, the Raptors won a franchise-best 49 games and, despite faltering in the final few weeks, still had home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. They were swept. And not only were they swept, they were nearly swept from the face of the earth, losing the fourth and final game by 31 points on Sunday. The Raptors have not won a seven-game playoff series since joining the NBA 20 years ago.
TORONTO FC
This is the team’s ninth season in Major League Soccer, and it has never qualified for the playoffs. Toronto FC came close to the post-season in 2009, needing only a tie against what was then the worst team in the league in their season finale — but it lost, 5-0. “I’m gutted,” midfielder Dwayne De Rosario told reporters that night. It has become the de facto motto. Toronto is on its ninth head coach — one for every year in the league — and has rewarded its legion of loyal fans with heartbreak. Jermain Defoe, the English star signed as part of a $100-million rebuild last year, is gone. The cause? He was allegedly homesick. Toronto FC has won two of its first six games this season. It is not in a playoff position.
TORONTO BLUE JAYS
Someone born after the most recent Blue Jays playoff game is old enough to drive, to buy alcohol, to vote and to know Joe Carter only through old television highlights. It has been almost 22 years since the Blue Jays appeared in the playoffs, giving the team not only the longest postseason drought in baseball, but in all of the major North American leagues.
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS
Two years from now, the Leafs will likely reach two major milestones, but they will only celebrate one of them. In 2017, the team will reach its centennial. The year will also mark the 50th birthday of the most recent Stanley Cup parade to be held in the city of Toronto. The Leafs own the longest Stanley Cup drought in the league. They have missed the post-season in nine of the last 10 seasons, their lone breakthrough coming two years ago, in a lockoutshortened season. They lost in the first round — surrendering a three-goal lead in the third period of a Game 7. Canadian teams have made 25 appearances in the Stanley Cup final since the Leafs began their self-imposed exile. No Canadian team has won the NHL title since 1993, but several — Vancouver (1994, 2011), Calgary (2004), Edmonton (2006) and Ottawa (2007) — have at least made an appearance. The Leafs have already fired two head coaches this year. They have issued one-year bans to at least three angry fans caught throwing jerseys onto the ice during play. One fan said he threw his wife’s jersey. “She gladly gave it to me,” he told the Toronto Sun in January. “I wasn’t about to throw my Wendel Clark jersey — that has been the heart and soul of the Leafs for years.”
BUFFALO BILLS
While technically based across the border, in Orchard Park, N.Y., the Bills have tried for years to stake Toronto as part of their home turf. And they have done their best to fit right in, owning the longest playoff drought in the NFL, a stretch of 15 seasons and counting. In 2008, Rogers Communications reached an agreement to pay $78 million to lease eight Bills games over five years. Ticket sales slumped, fans cheered for teams other than the Bills, and the series was officially scrapped late last year. As Bills centre Eric Wood told reporters in 2012: “It stunk that we were up there.”