There are once-a-year events throughout the calendar- some of them are spectacular, others less so.
Once a year, Santa Claus comes to town. And that’s marvellous.
By the same token, once a year, Linus sits in a pumpkin patch waiting for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. That’s sweet, but so sad.
The sporting equivalent of the Great Pumpkin is the annual NFL showcase in Toronto at the Rogers Centre.
Once a year, for the last FIVE years, the Buffalo Bills come to Toronto to bring NFL Football, ” real ” football, to the unwashed masses of NFL worshippers and American wanna-bees who populate the city and province.
The guise is to see if Toronto is NFL worthy or show the NFL that Toronto is NFL worthy, take your pick.
But to say the experience through the years has been less than successful is a massive understatement.
On the field, the Bills have lost 4 of the 5 games, including this year’s 50-17 blowout loss to Seattle.
At the conclusion of this year’s game. listening to the Bills radio network, the announcer firmly concluded, Toronto deserves better than this.
And the attendance reflects this.
Turnout for the affair has decreased from 52,000 down to 40,770 this year- and keep in mind a decent portion of those fans are there on freebie or promotional passes.
But, like Linus in the Pumpkin patch, we know there’s always next year for the Great Pumpkin and for the Bills-Toronto Series
I’m Fred Wallace