North American Soccer League (1979-1984)
Canadian Soccer League (1987-1992)
American Professional Soccer League (1993)
Tombstone
Born: February 13, 1979 – Re-branded from Toronto Metros-Croatia11980 Toronto Blizzard Media Guide
Folded: Postseason 1993
First Game: March 31, 1979 (L 2-1 @ Houston Hurricane)
Last Game: September 12, 1993 (W 3-2 vs. Colorado Foxes)
NASL Soccer Bowl Championships: None
CSL Championships: None
APSL Championships: None
Stadia
Outdoor Soccer:
1979-1983: Exhibition Stadium (54,369)21983 Official North American Soccer League Guide
1984 & 1987-1993: Varsity Stadium (21,738)31984 Toronto Blizzard Media Guide
1993: Lamport Stadium
Indoor Soccer:
1980-1982: Maple Leaf Gardens (16,485)
Marketing
Team Colors: Red, White & Reflex Blue41983 Official North American Soccer League Guide
Television:
- 1980: Global, CKGN (Channels 6 and 22, Cable 3)
Television Broadcasters:
- 1980: Mike Anscombe
Radio:
- 1980: CFRB (1010 AM)
- 1983-1984: CHIN (100.7 FM)
Radio Broadcaster:
- 1980: Bill Stephenson
- 1983-1984: Mike Inglis (Play-by-Play)
Ownership
Owners:
- 1979-1981: Global Communications, Ltd. (Paul Morton, Seymour Epstein, et al.)
- 1981-1993: York-Hannover (Karsten Von Wersebe)
Attendance
We have a partial record of Toronto Blizzard attendance from the NASL era and are working to add additional data.
Tilting your mobile device may offer better viewing.
Sources:
- 1984 Toronto Blizzard Media Guide (1983 Blizzard figures)
- Mott, Sue. “Pro soccer in U.S. must heal itself”. The Record (Hackensack, NJ). September 19, 1984 (1984 Blizzard & NASL figures)
Blizzard Bling
Toronto Blizzard NASL
Logo T-Shirt
Roberto Bettega, Bruce Wilson, David Byrne, Ace Ntsoelengoe and Jomo Sono. Soccer on the unforgiving artificial turf of Exhibition Stadium. International exhibitions against Juventus, Benfica and Nottingham Forest.
This attention-grabber from Old School Shirts celebrates the early 80’s era of NASL soccer in Toronto!
Also available in a women’s racerback tank and as a hooded sweatshirt from our partners at Old School Shirts!
When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support
Background
Toronto was a more or less constant presence in the North American Soccer League (NASL) of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s. In 1967, the city received expansion franchises in both of the rival North American pro leagues that sprung up in the wake of the 1966 World Cup. Toronto City set up shop in the United Soccer Association. The Toronto Falcons joined the “outlaw” (non-FIFA sanctioned) National Professional Soccer League. When the USA and the NPSL merged in 1968 to form the NASL, Toronto City fell by the wayside. The Falcons had the city to themselves for one season, but folded at the end of 1968.
Next up was the Metros, a new NASL expansion entry in 1971. The Metros muddled along quietly for several seasons at Varsity Stadium. In 1975, the struggling team was bailed out by the organizers of Toronto Croatia of Canada’s semi-pro National Soccer League. The new owners changed the club’s name to Toronto Metros-Croatia, much to the dismay of NASL officials who loathed the team’s ethno-nationalist branding. In 1976 Metros-Croatia capitalized on the midseason fire sale of the Boston Minutemen franchise and pilfered Portuguese superstar Eusebio and German midfielder Wolfgang Sunholz. To the supreme annoyance of NASL leaders, Eusebio and Sunholz sparked a late season run that saw Metros-Croatia win the league’s 1976 Soccer Bowl title.
Blizzard Blows In
The NASL got their wish to be rid of Metros-Croatia in February 1979. Global Television Network, a regional Ontario broadcaster, purchased the club and re-branded it as the “Toronto Blizzard” on the eve of the 1979 NASL season. Global also moved the team into Exhibition Stadium, the 54,000-seat home of the city’s recently arrived Toronto Blue Jays baseball team.
The 1980 Blizzard enjoyed the strongest support in Toronto’s pro soccer history. Clive Toye, the former British sportswriter and long-time NASL executive who signed Pele to his historic contract with the league’s New York Cosmos franchise, took over the Blizzard’s front office operations that season. The club claimed an all-time high of over 15,000 fans per match at exhibition stadium. In July of 1980, a crowd of over 34,000 turned out for an international friendly against European Cup winners Nottingham Forest of England. The team advanced to the quarterfinals of the NASL playoffs before losing to the Chicago Sting.
1981 was a disastrous reversal of fortune. The Blizzard staggered to a last place 7-25 finish. Attendance crashed more than 50% to 7,287 per match. Toronto was selected as the neutral site host of the NASL’s Soccer Bowl ’81 championship match on September 26, 1981. A crowd of 36,971 showed a Exhibition Stadium to watch the New York Cosmos and the Chicago Sting grind their way through a scoreless regulation and overtime session. The Sting ultimately triumphed, besting the Cosmos in the NASL’s unique “shootout” tiebreaker.
1983: Roberto Bettega & Controversial Soccer Bowl Loss
Clive Toye tried to woo Toronto’s Italian population by signing 32-year old former Juventus and Italian National Team striker Roberto Bettega in 1983. Bettega was one of the last major European players to sign with the faltering NASL. By 1983 the league was down to just 12 clubs, after field 24 teams as recently as 1980.
The Blizzard bounced back on the field from their 1981 nadir. Toronto advanced to the Soccer Bowl final in both 1983 and 1984. The team lost 2-0 in extremely controversial fashion to the Tulsa Roughnecks at Soccer Bowl ’83 before 53,000 fans in Vancouver. Tulsa’s leading scorer during the regular season, Ron Futcher, was suspended for the final due to accumulated yellow cards during the playoffs. NASL CEO and Commissioner Howard Samuels, a soccer novice in his first full season of a doomed effort to halt the league’s tailspin, overrode the league rulebook and allowed Futcher to play “in the best interests of the game”. Futcher scored the second of Tulsa’s two second-half goals to sink the Blizzard.
1984: Last Gasp of the NASL
In 1984 the Blizzard departed gigantic Exhibition Stadium with its horrid artificial surface in favor of 21,000-seat Varsity Stadium, which featured natural grass. The Blizzard returned to the final for a second straight season, this time against the Chicago Sting.
For the first (and last) time, the Soccer Bowl would be a two-leg series. Game One was played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park on October 1, 1984. Canadian international Bruce Wilson put Toronto up 1-0 in the 16th minute. But the Blizzard couldn’t hold the lead and surrendered two second half goals to lose 2-1.
The teams moved north to Varsity Stadium for the second leg on October 3, 1984. The Blizzard went down 2-0 in the 68th minute. But a bang-bang pair of goals by John Paskin and Roberto Bettega in the 71st and 73rd minutes thrilled the Toronto faithful and knotted the game at 2-2. The euphoria wouldn’t last as Chicago’s Pato Margetic finished off Toronto with an 82nd minute goal that would clinch the NASL’s final title for the Sting. Varsity Stadium, it turned out, had hosted the last match the NASL would ever play.
What remained of the NASL imploded over the next few months. CEO Howard Samuels dropped dead of a heart attack. Blizzard chairman Clive Toye replaced Samuels and attempted to hold the league together. But the Sting and the San Diego Sockers walked away from the outdoor game to devote themselves to indoor soccer. The once mighty Cosmos were an enfeebled parody of the super club of the 1970’s. By March 1985 only the Blizzard and the Minnesota Strikers had made commitments to play in 1985. Two clubs does not a league make so the NASL bowed to reality and closed down after 17 seasons.
Lower Level Leagues & Demise
Von Wersebe, a wealthy property developer who bought the club from Global Television in 1981, kept the Blizzard going in a variety of forms for much of the next decade. The Blizzard were a founding member of the Canadian Soccer League (CSL) in 1987 and played six years in that circuit. By the early 1990’s, Von Wersebe’s over-leveraged York-Hannover financial empire was in a state of collapse. The club made one last gasp, leaving the dying CSL for the American Professional Soccer League in 1993 with the hope that the struggling APSL might receive FIFA’s 1st Division sanction after the U.S.-hosted World Cup in 1994. That designation ultimately went to Major League Soccer instead, but it was no matter. The Blizzard went out of business once and for all after the 1993 APSL season.
Toronto Blizzard Shop
Editor's Pick
Rock n' Roll Soccer
The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League
by Ian Plenderleith
The North American Soccer League – at its peak in the late 1970s – presented soccer as performance, played by men with a bent for flair, hair and glamour. More than just Pelé and the New York Cosmos, it lured the biggest names of the world game like Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Eusebio, Gerd Müller and George Best to play the sport as it was meant to be played-without inhibition, to please the fans.
The first complete look at the ambitious, star-studded NASL, Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer reveals how this precursor to modern soccer laid the foundations for the sport’s tremendous popularity in America today.
When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!
Downloads
6-3-1979 Blizzard @ New York Cosmos Game Notes
6-3-1979 Toronto Blizzard at New York Cosmos Game Notes
7-2-1980 Blizzard @ New York Cosmos Game Notes
8-19-1981 Blizzard vs. New York Cosmos Game Notes
1-26-1982 Blizzard vs. New York Cosmos (Indoor Season) Game Notes
8-11-1982 Blizzard @ New York Cosmos Game Notes
7-13-1983 Blizzard vs. Vancouver Whitecaps Roster
8-16-1983 Blizzard vs. New York Cosmos Game Notes
6-17-1984 Blizzard vs. New York Cosmos Game Notes
Links
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