On Tuesday evening, a Toronto-based sports franchise saved its absolute best performance for the game that mattered the absolute most, and came away with a resounding, comprehensive and deserved victory against an ostensibly superior opponent.
While that's probably unprecedented, what's definitely unprecedented is the situation TFC now finds itself in, with a CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final date set for the first half of March against an as-of-this-writing-unknown-opponent.
And while downtown Toronto is hardly the Canadian hinterland, it gets cold here. And it snows. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes, a hell of a lot. So the question now becomes: Where does TFC play its CCL QF home leg?
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The question looms large for supporters who sit in the three-year-old shadow of the Montreal Impact's appearance in this stage of the competition, when that team was able to pack over 55,000 fans into Olympic Stadium for a showdown with Santos Laguna of Mexico:
I just know the supporters have been itching for a chance to do the wave at a TFC match!
Sure, it's widely assumed that many of the tickets were given away for free, or close to it. But does it matter? That 2-0 win for the Impact was a momentous spectacle. It got the team in the press. It energized the soccer fans in the city -- and, to an extent, across the country. (For the purposes of this argument, let's just forget what happened in the second leg, shall we?)
Positive energy, positive press, positive results... after five heart-wrenching years of declining general interest and relevance in the city, that's exactly what Toronto FC sorely needs, and what a heavily-hyped one-off matchup at a raucous, sold-out Rogers Centre could provide.
Could the game be played at BMO Field? Conceivably. The quarter-final match could happen as late as March 15, and TFC's first match at BMO Field this season was March 26, so it's not as though these are uncharted waters. The playing surface is heated, and if things really get dicey, fans could be enlisted to help shovel snow off of the pitch, a la Canada's friendly in Estonia a few years ago.
There's also the supposed home-field advantage that would come from playing in cool conditions, exacerbated as always by the stadium's proximity to the civic waterfront. But it's no guarantee that members of Toronto FC's squad -- emanating from different parts of the world and three months removed from their most recent competitive match -- would necessarily benefit greatly from the "freezing" effect on the competition.
Moreover, while the bundled-up diehards would surely be in full voice, getting Torontonians (many of whose minds would likely be focused on this year's ultimately-futile Maple Leafs late-season push) enthused about a blustery, frost-bitten game against an opponent they may never have heard of could be a tough sell.
For my money, the game should be at the Rogers Centre.
The team desperately needs a civic shot in the arm, an event that could recreate some of the excitement around the team that was on bold display throughout 2007. Ownership should paper the house. Five-dollar seats in the bleachers. Free tickets for community clubs who bring 100 or more kids. Operate the game at a loss, if need be, in order to cram as many existing fans, and potential converts, into that stadium as possible.
And then just hope and pray that the team puts on a performance just like the one against FC Dallas.
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