MLS commissioner sees positives in Canada

THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO — The MLS season hasn’t even started yet but already commissioner Don Garber is feeling good about the Canadian end of the league.

Toronto FC drew 47,000-plus to its CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final against the Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday night. The fledgling Montreal Impact are expected to draw 50,000 for their early home games at Olympic Stadium.

And the Vancouver Whitecaps, after a challenging debut season that found them in the league cellar, are being touted in some quarters as a team that might turn some heads.

Garber was in Toronto for Wednesday’s game and it’s clear that the festive occasion left an impression.

“When you have a moment like (Wednesday) night, boy that really just makes you feel very proud about being in the soccer business,” Garber told a media conference call Wednesday.

“And I was sitting with the owner of the club (MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum), who owns an NBA team and an NHL team and he said ‘This is just one of the best sporting events I’ve ever been to,”‘ Garber related.

“It was remarkable in there. And I wouldn’t have expected it to be that great. I knew it would be fun but I didn’t know it would be that special.”

Garber acknowledged that the artificial turf did not help things. Galaxy coach Bruce Arena called it (slightly) dangerous, among other adjectives.

“My heart was in my mouth a couple of times when some players looked like they were stumbling on what seemed to be seams on the field,” Garber said.

“They looked at laying grass and it was not feasible. The surface did not look to me like it was the type of new FieldTurf that we hope to have our players play on. I think we would look to address that issue if we were to go back there (to the Rogers Centre) for a game — not this year but I think in future years.

“I think we can do better.”

Despite the Canadian success stories, Garber says he did not necessarily expect Vancouver and Montreal would be successes out of the box — despite the popularity of the Toronto franchise.

“Having been in this business for 12 years now, you have to live the dream a bit and hope that things can over-deliver. But the sport is still emerging in North America and we go in expecting that we’re going to have a tough fight and lots of challenges.”

The success, he said is “well-earned but still seems to be surprising.”

“There’s still no shortage of people that don’t like this game and in many ways kind of try to hold it back among the more traditional members of the sports community.”

Toronto (6-13-15) and Vancouver (6-18-10) really have no place to go but up in the standings this season.

The Impact, the league’s 19th team, kick off their MLS adventure on Saturday in Vancouver.

Toronto has the weekend off before heading to Los Angeles for the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions League matchup with the Galaxy. TFC then kicks off its MLS season on March 17 in Seattle.