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The Rifles, the Northmen, the Phantoms and the Bills

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The Bills moving to Toronto is an idea that has been floated out there for quite sometime and a possible new ownership group led by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chairman and singer Jon Bon Jovi has been looking at possible stadium locations around Ontario. Now it would near be impossible to move the Bills out of Buffalo before 2022 but just the thought of the Bills relocating North of the border is something that is not exactly being welcomed with open arms.

I speak as a football fan/reporter that lives part time in Toronto and quite frankly present day Toronto is not a good football market, NFL or CFL. US Pro Football Leagues struggle whenever a team moves to Canada or they place an expansion team in the Great White North. Be it finances or being stuck in an overly saturated sports market football teams in Toronto outside of the CFL do not last long.

There's various examples of Toronto getting pro football teams in other leagues and they were all busts. Want proof? Here are some examples.

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Toronto Rifles (Continental Football League, 1965-1967)

The Rifles were apart of a new league that was trying to become a rival in the American football world to the American Football League and the NFL in the 1960s. The Rifles actually had some success on the field as they made the playoffs twice in their franchise history, and made the league title game in 1965 but fell to the Charleston Rockets.

One of their most well known players was QB Tom Wilkinson who would go on to win multiple Grey Cup titles with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1970s and 80s in the other CFL and the head coach was Leo Cahill who jumped shipped from the Montreal Alouettes.

The good times didn't last for the Rifles as they folded after playing 4 games of the 1967 season and that year the ownership lost $400,000 during the season. Let's do some calculations, losing $400,000 dollars in 1967 would equate to losing close to $3 million in 2014 which would cause me to break down and cry and proceed to start cutting lawns for cash ASAP.

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Toronto Northmen (World Football League, 1974)

Pierre Trudeau and others in the Canadian Parliament worked to make sure that the Northmen did not play a game.

I'm not joking.

Also that logo of what appears to be a Polar bear in trying to yell or roar but is doing a pretty awful attempt was their actual team logo as well.

John Bassett's expansion team into the wild WFL would be forced to move to Memphis before the start of the 1974 season and ended up changing their name to the Southmen (a name so hated by the locals they ended up un-officially calling them the Grizzlies) because the Canadian government felt that US football leagues expanding into Canada would threaten the existence of the CFL and the "Canadian Football Act" was actually drawn up but never put into actual law by Health Minister Marc Lalonde to prevent future US football leagues from putting teams into Canada.

After the forced move to Memphis, the Southmen made the playoffs in 1974 with a league best record of 17-3 but lost in the playoffs to the League semi finals to the Florida Blazers. In 1975 the Southmen made waves by luring several Miami Dolphins offensive threats in the form of Jim Kiick, Larry Csonka and Paul Warfield to the team and they would put up a 7-4 record........before the entire league folded 11 weeks into the season.

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Toronto Phantoms (Arena Football League, 2001-2002)

The 50 Yard Indoor War in Toronto!!! Yup. In 2001 the New England Sea Wolves relocated to Toronto, marking the first time that the league would have a Canadian franchise.

I grew up watching the AFL on a weekly basis on TV and I was very excited to find out that there would be a Canadian franchise in the league. Games aired on Sportsnet and the team played out of the Air Canada Centre.

Toronto made the playoffs in their first season (2001) putting up a mark of 8-6 before losing in the 2nd round to the Nashville Kats.

One of the defensive stars for the Phantoms was defensive back Ty Law. Yes Ty Law. No not THAT Ty Law, there's another Ty Law that played pro football and just happened to also be a defensive back.

2002 was a big time tumble for the Phantoms as they regressed greatly and finished out of the playoffs with a mark of 5-9. 2002 would be the end of the line for the team as they just couldn't get a foothold on the Toronto sporting landscape.

At the time you had the Toronto Raptors, Maple Leafs, Rock (NLL) all doing well as well as the Toronto Argonauts still being the football kings in the city. Oh and did I forget to also mention the Toronto Blue Jays as well?

The Phantoms on average also failed to get 7,000 fans in the seats at the Air Canada Centre so the team sticking around just wasn't going to happen and their owner, Rogers Communications folded the franchise.

The team is still around in video game form as they are an unlockable team in both of the AFL's video games for the PlayStation 2 but there's not a single official player from the team in the game. If you want to play as the other Ty Law you'll have to manually put him on the roster yourself.

So in Conclusion....

Toronto and US pro football has always been a tricky situation, with the Bills struggles over the past 15 years and the Toronto Series games being an unmitigated disaster, a team here full time would only make matters messier in the largest city in Canada.

The Bills have a rich history in the city of Buffalo and even with their present day struggles they are still average over 66,000 fans per game at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Even with the on field troubles the fan base is still incredibly dedicated to the club and to see that go away would be a black mark to the NFL as a whole.

Just another great fan opinion shared on the pages of BuffaloRumblings.com.