Recently, I watched the excellent documentary Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, and it got me thinking about the North American Soccer League. The NASL operated from 1968-1984 and included a number of Canadian teams.

The league’s popularity began to rise in the late 1970s after the Cosmos signed aging Brazilian star Pelé and then several other European and Latin American players. This resulted in their second league title in 1977 (the first was in 1972). They went on to repeat as champions in 1978, 1980 and 1982, and along with their league-leading attendance, this made them the most successful franchise in league history.

But I’m from Toronto. And I noticed that the champions in 1976 were a team called the Toronto Metros-Croatia. And that in the final two years of the league’s existence, the Toronto Blizzard made it to the championship games and lost twice. Who were these guys, and why in less than twenty years did Toronto have four different team names?

Well, the Toronto Falcons played only one full year in the NASL (1968) before renaming themselves the Toronto Metros, and in 1975 they were joined by a team called the Toronto Croatia. This ethnic club had played in Toronto since 1956 as part of the Canadian National Soccer League. In 1978, the team split again, with the NASL team renaming themselves the Toronto Blizzard and Toronto Croatia returning to the CNSL. This team continues to play today in the Canadian Professional Soccer League, while the Blizzard struggled on for another ten years in various lesser leagues when the NASL folded. What happened to professional soccer in Toronto after that?

Toronto has had a franchise called the Toronto Lynx in the United Soccer Leagues since 1997, and in 2007 will have a team in the successful Major League Soccer organization. There’s a small chance that it will be called the Toronto Blizzard (although it’s looking more likely that it will carry the inanely pseudo-European moniker of “Inter Toronto FC”). There’s even a petition to bring back the Blizzard name.

Here’s a nice tribute site to the original Toronto Blizzard, true runners-up.

The NASL Alumni Association arranged a reunion for more than 60 former players in September 2005.