TORONTO - For decades, a slew of American owners has valiantly tried to sell a uniquely Canadian product to skeptical Toronto audiences. So for those of us who have followed the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts closely all these years, there's a certain irony in the fact that it's two local proprietors who've decided the best way to get the city excited about the team is by attempting to recreate the American football experience.
David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski are accidental revolutionaries. Until a few weeks ago, their vision for the Argos was merely to mimic the success of the Montreal Alouettes by moving the team to a small, intimate stadium on a downtown university campus. But then the tall foreheads at the University of Toronto decided that professional football was too uncouth a spectacle to soil their turf, and the novice owners -- who'd already poured plenty of their own time and money into the project -- had the rug abruptly pulled out from under them.
Within a matter of days, though, it was already clear that Messrs. Cynamon and Sokolowski considered the university's cop-out a blessing in disguise. Long before settling on the downtown site, they'd flirted with an alternative location that would dramatically change the nature of the way Canadian football is packaged in this city -- and perhaps even change the city a little bit, too. So the U of T fiasco gave them a perfect excuse to take a risk and see how it would play out.
Hence, this week's official announcement that the Argos would be settling into a new stadium at York University in 2006 came as no surprise. But whether moving to a remote campus in the northwest corner of Toronto will prove a stroke of genius or a recipe for disaster remains an open question.
What the owners are banking on is not merely the lure of an intimate, outdoor stadium after the cavernous, concrete-heavy Skydome that's been home to the Argos since 1989. Rather, their hope is to recreate the sort of weekend ritual that's common in virtually every major city south of the border.
Few National Football League teams play anywhere close to downtown. And for their fans, game-day is much more than a three-hour affair. They arrive early, stay late and party all the way through. Tailgating -- mostly in the form of pre-game barbeques and drinkathons in the parking lot - is as much a part of the American stadium experience as the Star-Spangled Banner.
It's not that this phenomenon is entirely alien in Canada. The Calgary Stampeders are similarly situated on a suburban campus, and rarely have problems drawing fans keen to make a day of it. And the Saskatchewan Roughriders have created such a strong sense of community that supporters from across the province gladly make the drive to Regina for each home game.
Making it work in Toronto, however, will be another thing entirely. To begin with, creating any real sense of community in a diverse metropolitan area with more than four million residents is easier said than done. And given Torontonians' range of entertainment options, convincing them to regularly commit their Saturdays or Sundays to hanging around a football stadium will be no mean feat.
Then there's the alcohol question. In a telephone interview, Mr. Cynamon suggests that quite apart from navigating their way through Ontario's rigid liquor laws, the Argos would prefer to "stay away from" the heavier drinking that dominates American tailgating, and confine it to "a more controlled environment" instead.
That's a noble stance, but perhaps not an entirely realistic one. However much the Argos work to attract families, a significant chunk of any football fan base is made up of a high testosterone crowd for whom beer and football go hand-in-hand. Decree that all those pre- and post-game festivities are going to stay dry, and much of it will stay away.
Striking the perfect balance of entertainment and atmosphere to appeal to die-hard sports nuts and suburban families alike, in other words, will be difficult for a team that's effectively building a new identity from scratch. But to their credit, the buoyant co-owners seem committed to making a solid run of it.
"This is now a true experience that we have to create. This is now more of a destination," Mr. Cynamon says. "We're going to have the room to allow people to barbeque, and to picnic, and have tents and have a carnival type atmosphere for kids."
Give them credit, too, for recognizing that it's time to take a chance. "Remember, the Argos have been downtown for 130 years in one venue or another," Mr. Cynamon offers. "And they have yet to truly be successful, with last year's bankruptcy really capping it off ... We're trying something new - because old really didn't work."
Whether it's entirely in the city's interest for it to work is a slightly different question. If the Argos' move to the 'burbs proves a wild success, other entertainment options -- including, perhaps, baseball's Blue Jays, who may eventually require a new stadium of their own -- could follow suit. And in many of the American cities where that sort of migration has taken place, downtowns have become ghost towns.
Setting urban development patterns, mind you, is a bridge the Argos will happily cross when they come to it. For now, they're only concerned with giving Torontonians -- urban and suburban alike - enough incentive to make the trek to York. From there, it'll be up to the ticket-buying public to justify the owners' faith that what works south of the border can work here, too.
