So let’s move away from being angry soccer fans protecting our little park on the Toronto waterfront from the churning, chiseled cleats of the Blue Helmet Brigade downwind at the SkyDome.
Let’s look, instead, at why moving the Toronto Argonauts to BMO Field would be a bad deal for the Boatmen, their fans – and the game of Canadian gridiron football.
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- Why would a team getting free rent in a large covered stadium directly connected to the subway want to move to a cramped park with weaker transit connections and scything winds that often make it the coldest, most exposed place in the entire Greater Toronto Area?
- Why would the CFL agree to play on a field that is fully 35 yards too short? The 115 yards of north-south at BMO can’t even handle a smaller American field, let alone the large, freewheeling pasture CFL fans adore.
- Why would the Canadian National Exhibition and the city – who have just accepted $5-million from Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to install grass at BMO and build other soccer facilities around Toronto – turn around and destroy that grass for soccer? Especially when MLSE is also putting up funds for new seating in the stadium’s north end?
- Why do people think BMO Field will be the second coming of Molson Stadium in Montreal? We all know the CFL’s Alouettes moved to the tiny park on Mount Royal, and became a huge hit with local fans. But when you walk out of Molson Stadium after a game, you’re surrounded by the Old World essence of Montreal at its finest – with restaurants, bars and nightclubs in profusion. Postgame at BMO is concrete, tunnels, a draughty train station, highways … a truly unappealing, inconvenient wasteland, the honest truth be told.
Argo fans, we’re talking about reduced convenience, thousands fewer seats, serious weather exposure, a huge compromise in the rules of the game, and nowhere to go afterwards.
Who, exactly, is that a good deal for?
I’m all for trying new things – but this move is a non-starter for plenty of solid CFL-related reasons.
Onward!