So there I was, minding my own business when I get a last minute request to take someone to a Neil Young concert Thursday night. I pulled on my Pats toque (yep, it's true) and off we went. As an aside, I'm not a Neil Young fan, but the show was excellent, and I quite enjoyed Wilco and Everest.
The concert was at the Air Canada Centre (an amazing hockey arena) which is literally two blocks from the CN Tower and Sky Dome (I know it's called the Roger's Centre, but no one here calls it that). We were early and the band hadn't dropped our passes off at the will call yet, so we decided to walk to the Dome and grab a cup of Joe.
Well, it turns out people are very excited about the AFC East clash here, and those people are not fans of the New England Patriots. I managed to end up in numerous exchanges about the how the Pats are toast this year and how the Dolphins and Jets (barf) are coming after the division, blah blah blah.
I think these games are setting up a new Franchise here. The Bills COULD move here, but I hope they don't.
Eventually I found some Patriots fans, but they were all traveling with or in the bands. Ontario loves NFL football, but they DO NOT love the Patriots and after a couple of nasty remarks from total strangers in the heart of Toronto, I think making a playoff run would force me to trade in my toque for a flak jacket. And let me say, this isn't the USA, this kind of thing is not very common (though people do get pretty worked up about hockey, for some reason...).
Watch for a Pats/Bills clash in TO in 2010. I'm already excited.
Any other Patriots fans in the area running across the hype and hostility
this game is bringing to us?
