Toronto Til I Die

By Ben Knight Globe&Mail On Soccer

Knight: ‘Toronto till I die!’
Columbus Part 2

This part of the story is very visual. Come and join me for a little stroll.

In a curving nook of Interstate 71, there’s a large, open expanse of Columbus, Ohio, flatland. In the centre of this, impressively, sits Crew Stadium – focal point of this afternoon’s invasion.

Funny the optical illusions you encounter with stadiums. Crew really isn’t that much bigger than BMO Field back in Toronto, but from down here it looks utterly massive. You can still see the exact opposite effect in Philadelphia. If you stand across the street from the old Spectrum, the legendary home of the Broad Street Bullies looks ridiculously small. You think you must be looking at the end, but you’re not: it’s the side. That something that small could ever contain a big-time hockey rink – let alone a ravenous, kill-crazy crowd – just doesn’t seem possible.

BMO’s cousin, in terms of the simplicity of the thin-girder architecture, Crew Stadium has upper decks on both sides. It looks oddly graceful, and very inviting. The back side of the scoreboard looms over a gigantic plaza. The team’s logo, three hard-hat construction workers posing under the word “Crew,” looks down hugely – more like a freeze-frame from a Village People video than a soccer logo.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

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