The Varsity Blues’ forty-nine-game losing streak is officially yesterday’s news. They must’ve enjoyed their first victory since 2001, because two weeks later they won again, a notable accomplishment for a football program that hadn’t won a game in almost seven years. It was also a highly symbolic victory: as the seconds ticked away, a torch was passed in Canadian university men's football. The team they beat, the York Lions, is now the worst team in......

Two months after Cito Gaston returned to the dugout for the Blue Jays, Don Matthews is back in double blue as head coach of the Argonauts. Can it be long before Pat Quinn's back with the Leafs? Let's hope not, but like Gaston's return, Matthews's third stint in Toronto will likely have a positive impact on the team. Rich Stubler simply looked stupefied on the football sidelines this season. He had been a great......

One of the most ignominious streaks in Canadian sports history is finally—finally—over. As we mentioned on Monday, the University of Toronto men's football team snapped its frankly mind-boggling forty-nine game losing skid. It was their first victory since October 13, 2001. The last-minute, come-from-behind 18-17 win over the Waterloo Warriors likely wasn't aesthetically pleasing, but no one associated with the long-suffering program is going to care. And while we thought about dwelling on the......

Toronto's latest dalliance with the National Football League is underway—and while yesterday's Buffalo Bills/Pittsburgh Steelers game was a predictably tepid affair, we're guessing the organizers will be reasonably happy with the way things played out. First, the game. Preseason NFL games are frequently dire, and yesterday's wasn't much of an exception. Buffalo rookie Leodis McKelvin briefly brought the Rogers Centre to life with a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, but for the most part......

Toronto's NFL experiment begins this Thursday—and while we still don't know where it'll lead, we do know it's beginning not with a bang but a whimper. Not that the Buffalo (Toronto?) Bills are an awful team; neither are their inaugural Toronto opponents, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who've actually won more games than anyone else since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970. The problem isn't the teams—it's the format, as well as how it's being marketed. The......

Not so many of those bright red packs would be seen at an Argonauts game nowadays due to legislation, unless one pokes out of a fan's pocket. The 1969 edition of the Boatmen (10 wins, 4 losses) finished in second place in the East, a game behind the Ottawa Rough Riders. Four players were named to the CFL's all-star team: running back Dave Raimey, offensive guard Charlie Bray, defensive end Ed Harrington, and defensive......

Photo by John Griffiths. The CFL is a league of second chances. And, more than most teams, the Argonauts are willing to grant an opportunity to players who've discovered how unforgiving other leagues can be towards injuries and indiscretions of personal conduct. With the new season kicking off this evening, the Argonauts look to improve on last year, when the team finished first in the East, but fell apart in the playoffs. Despite an......

Stéphane Dion says that Canadians are smart enough to accept a carbon tax, and he seems willing to bet the next election on it. It's awesome that we have an opposition leader too naïve to recognize that however revenue-neutral and environmentally beneficial his plan is, this may not be the most politically savvy time to hike gas prices. Senator Larry Campbell, concerned about the future of the Canadian Football League, is preparing a bill......

180,000 people have applied to buy tickets for the eight games that the NFL's Buffalo Bills will be playing at the Rogers Centre between now and 2012. The tickets will range as high as $295 (pre-scalper), which is still better than having to go to Buffalo. Because it's such a long drive, we mean. Geez, stop being so sensitive, Buffalo. Ontario is planning to crack down on bootleg cigarettes by launching a public education......

Many of us were looking forward to welcoming the Buffalo Bills to Toronto. The eight games they'll play here over the next five years could've been the perfect complement to our existing football diet of live Argonauts games and televised NFL matches. Now that the details have been announced, more than a few of us have been priced out of attending. The majority of tickets average into the $350 per game range, and are only......

Almost half of all Toronto-area residents are foreign-born. This is the first little tidbit released from the 2006 census, which the government is doling out as if it were a movie trailer or something. (Will Smith versus zombies: probably more entertaining.) Bank of Canada lowers interest rates. A weakened loonie will allow Canada's manufacturing sector to compete more efficiently in international markets, by which we mostly mean the United States. Conservative insiders will meet tonight......

There were 4 more murders in Toronto on the weekend, meaning we only need 11 more to tie the all-time record of 89 set back in 1991. A spokesman for City Hall said that sure, the numbers look bad now, but crime would drop once all the thugs had killed each other. Not only more violent, but poorer too––a United Way report says that the median family income in Toronto is $10,000 lower than......

If you're like us, and you attended a Canadian university, you probably watch U.S. college football with a mixture of bemusement and envy—bemusement because you can’t quite fathom how a hundred thousand people could turn up to watch collegiate athletes, envy because you wish you could’ve had that experience at your school. This past Friday, for instance, over 90,000 fans packed Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to watch the Arkansas Razorbacks knock off......

Toronto declares first cold alert of the winter season. John Baird immediately points out how the existence of cold weather might mean that we're all wrong about global warming. Report calls for expansion of Ontario's small claims court system. Many lawyers were interviewed about their opinion on the best way to increase access to justice in Canada—and then the report writers wrote down the exact opposite of what they said. (The joke here is that......

An up-close look at the Grey Cup trophy reveals countless dents and scratches attesting to the long and colourful life of probably the most disrespected and abused trophy in sports. Since being donated by Canada’s 9th Governor General, Earl Grey, the trophy has been head-butted, sat on, and snapped in half. It’s been abandoned for years at a time in bank vaults and hall closets. It’s been forgotten in empty stadiums and hotel rooms......

Some Canadian cattle will now be allowed into the United States following a 4-year ban in the wake of several cases of "mad cow" disease. American Homeland Security regulations will still require that any bovines wishing to cross the border carry a valid passport. The latest UN report on climate change says that global disaster is a safe bet if we don't change our carbon-emitting ways by 2012. It's all good for Canadians though, as......

City Council considers removing the downspout removal subsidy. This news item brought to you by The Council For Reminding You That Municipal Politics Are Often Incredibly Dull Even If They're Necessary. (The group promises to come up with a better, catchier acronym as soon as possible.) RCMP to review Taser policy after the death of Robert Dziekanski. See, they're sorry, but they're not quite so sorry as to, for example, charge their officers with any......

The Toronto Argonauts can turn this Sunday’s Eastern Final into the perfect kickoff for the upcoming Grey Cup festival. If the Argos beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to reach the championship game, it'll give a huge boost to the week-long party, also known as “Canada’s national drunk.” Brad Watters, general manager of this year's Grey Cup, says that the team winning the 95th Grey Cup at home "would really turn the town on its......

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has announced that the rich pay the lowest tax rates of all income groups. Heather Reisman, Jim Balsillie, and everyone who lives on the Bridle Path celebrated this by heating their gigantic mansions with a fireplace full of money and cackling. Maniacally. Dalton McGuinty is adding to economic fear-mongering by claiming that the rising loonie is hurting Ontario’s economy and that interest rates should be lowered. Meanwhile on......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without......

The NFL is coming, sort of, to Toronto—and already, rumours of the CFL’s imminent demise are being greatly exaggerated. News that the Buffalo Bills—an erstwhile powerhouse languishing in competitive irrelevance and financial uncertainty—are planning on playing a couple games a year in Toronto isn’t surprising; if anything, what’s surprising is that it hasn’t happened already. Toronto has been courting the NFL for decades, and the Bills, whose long-term survival in Buffalo is in jeopardy,......

After MasterCard agreed to ante up $160k to keep city skating rinks open this December, local newspapers spoke with one voice in reporting the story. The Star offered the headline "Private bailout of city rinks...priceless," the Post weighed in with "Skating in December...priceless," and the Sun daringly dropped the ellipsis with "Donation: Priceless." The Globe alone experienced a spasm of originality, settling for a subheading of "Skating still in the cards." Stéphane Dion, content......

Ontario Conservative leader John "The Tory" Tory has promised that if elected a Conservative government would allocate $800 million to public transit in the province. Tory also confessed that it has been a long-time dream of his to one day ride on a streetcar, but that his chauffeur wasn't yet licensed to drive one. David Crombie has been named "community liaison official' in the sometimes violent land claim dispute between the First Nations and......

The Toronto sports media have never met an axe they couldn’t grind—especially when it involves the Toronto Maple Leafs. Contrary to what you might’ve read, however, the Leafs actually are not the worst franchise in the history of professional sports. We know they haven’t made the playoffs since 2004; the way they’re covered in the local media, however, you’d think they hadn’t won a single game since 2001. Which brings us to the University......

Photo by Flickr user captiveight from her Rider Nation album. One of Toronto's invisible expatriate communities will emerge this evening for a sporting event and cultural celebration rolled into one. While other immigrant communities can anchor themselves in cultural festivals, community groups, or neighbourhoods, ex-Saskatchewanians have a football team: the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders. The team squares off tonight against the Toronto Argonauts at the Rogers Centre. The Riders are coming off a string of......

A survey by British research firm Skytrax has named Air Canada the best airline in North America. Travelers who have endured experienced the Air Canada business model of surly staff, vanishing meals, and rising fares will marvel at how low the bar for airline excellence on this continent has now been set. BabyFirst TV is coming to Canada. The first television channel aimed at babies will soon be offered on cable and satellite systems......

Once a year Toronto the Good becomes Toronto the very naughty. FFN (formerly known as Folsom Fair North) is Toronto's annual fetish fair. Now in its fifth year, the Fair features everything from play areas and parties to an art tent. Festivities kick off July 20 with the Welcome to Toronto party, being held at Alibi. The next night is Agitator, FFN’s big deal sports-themed fetish blowout at the Opera House. The FFN web......

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! Who says soccer—er, football—isn't a contact sport? Behold this moment frozen in time by Flickr pool contributor sthursby, taken last Wednesday during the U-20 FIFA World Cup at the National Soccer Stadium here in Toronto. The action finds Gambia's Ousman Jallow......

Tut tut tut. We’re all very disappointed in you, John Krasinski, for your decision to star in License to Wed. Sure, you’ve been working so hard to build up your hipster cred—interviewing the Shins, playing on stage with Ben Gibbard, but I’m afraid we might have to revoke your hipster privileges. The Sun’s Kevin Williamson claims of the film, “you can at least approximate the experience of sitting through this alleged romantic comedy at home......

You know all those flashy LED lights on the CN Tower? Apparently they're going to get flashier by this Thursday. U of T is set to approve the plan to build a $53 million Centre for High Performance Sport just west of Varsity Stadium on Bloor Street. Maybe their football team could start training to win a game. A 13-year-old has become a quadriplegic after a gang-related stabbing outside of Christie Station on Friday......