We have much to discuss. Walk with me.
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Okay, so some brainless teenage yahoo from Stoney Creek winds up and throws a burning road flare.
Not into Section 114 at BMO Field – but straight at Ottawa City Council.
Ottawa immediately bans pro soccer from the region for all eternity. They also order Bank Street closed for another nine months. (Inside Ottawa joke. If you tried to drive that town in the fall and winter of ’07-’08, you know.)
That lights a fire under the suddenly efficient Canadian Soccer Association. They get on the horn to CONCACAF president Chuck Warner, and convince him to cough up a chunk of the money he never got around to paying that incredible Trinidad and Tobago 2006 World Cup team (Do the right thing, you bureaucratic stinkweed!). That money goes straight to Montreal, for the expansion of Stade Saputo.
Montreal is immediately welcomed into MLS with open arms, settling for an expansion team after declining the chance to be a foster home for the Columbus Crew. (“Too much bad karma,” owner Joey Saputo says. “We want to start clean.”)
That lights a fire under the Vancouver Whitecaps. Realizing they are about to become a “turf team” when they move into B.C. Place, and desperate to win the Voyaguers Cup whilst Montreal are still minor-leaguers, the Whitecaps roll a plastic pitch out over the grass at Swangard. They subsequently win the Canadian championship, destroying Toronto FC on the flare-singed turf at BMO. (“Turns out we’re a turf team,” ‘Caps president Bob Lenarduzzi tells “It’s Called Football.” “Who knew?”)
The Torontos, stung by the loss of whatever home field advantage their poor and pummeled plastic once provided, decide the only way to protect the turf from flying flares is to replace it – with grass.
Canada’s national teams immediately embrace “Canada’s National Soccer Stadium.” The men win a bunch of games at BMO, and easily qualify for the 2014 World Cup. They are drawn in a group with Portugal, Peru and Liberia. In the end, all they salvage is an edgy 1-1 draw with the Africans – on a bizarre quadruple deflection that is subsequently credited to the assistant equipment manager on the sidelines.
Newly elected Canadian prime minister Peter Montopoli hails the performance as “distinctly Canadian,” and we all go back to our daily existence in the new and booming ethanol-and-zamboni economy of the mid-2010s.
(Ottawa never receives an MLS franchise. The Las Vegas Crew do, eventually, relocate to Saskatoon.)
(Not that I condone flares, mind you.)
Onweird!