Toronto
American pro athletes used to think of Toronto as a backwater. High taxes and low temperatures combined with a woeful lack of television exposure back in the States made playing here about as appealing as Canada's national dish of french fries soaked in gravy and cheese curds.
B.J. Armstrong, the first expansion-draft pick of the NBA's Toronto Raptors, famously asked to be traded shortly after setting foot here for the first time.
Today, however, Toronto is a road trip just about every pro athlete looks forward to. Some say the city has a cool, international vibe that increasingly stands out. Some like the plentitude of cheap concert tickets—a boon for athletes with big posses—or the convenience of the must-be-19 drinking law. (Rookie guard DeMar DeRozan of the Raptors, who is 20, was ordering chocolate milk at dinner before his teammates told him the good news).
Athletes get a warm welcome at the city's relatively libertine gentlemen's clubs which, according to a spokeswoman for the Toronto Convention and Visitors Bureau, tend to "clear out the champagne room" for visiting athletes. And it helps that the tentacles of the tabloids and gossip Web sites rarely extend this far into the frozen north. "People like to come here to party," says Raptors power forward Chris Bosh.
Basketball stars like LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Jamaal Magloire of the Miami Heat (a Toronto native) have come to Toronto for fun—even during the NBA offseason. Since the Buffalo Bills began playing annual games at Toronto's Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) in 2008, an increasing number of NFL players have started passing through "the 416," which is the city's area code. Baseball players, who've been coming here since 1977 to play the Blue Jays, have good memories.
"It reminds me of Tokyo," says Hideki Matsui, the Angels' new designated hitter, who came to Toronto for many years with the New York Yankees. Going out with his teammates was always a relief, he says, because "the attention level is not as bad as New York—though being a pretty big-sized Asian person there are a few people who recognize me."
Though it may not have more bars and clubs than other pro sports towns, many of Toronto's 3,300-plus establishments holding liquor licenses are concentrated within walking distance of the city's major sports venues—and close to the hotels where athletes tend to stay. Five new five-star hotels are expected to open in the area in the next two years.
When the sun sets in Toronto and the roof of the Rogers Centre starts to glow like giant spaceship, the downtown club district—once a quiet industrial stretch of garment factories—begins to teem with life. Strolling the streets from bar to bar are well-dressed revelers of all ethnicities.
Jarrett Jack, a Raptors guard, says the "mix of people" in Toronto is far more interesting than he sees in most NBA towns. "One girl told me she's from Hungary and Chile—I'm like, how does that happen?" says Mr. Jack. "You kind of go outside the box here."
"There are certain cities you go to where you want to get there a day ahead and give (the players) a chance to have their fun—and Toronto has become one of those cities," says Raptors assistant coach Alex English.
At the center of much of the city's athlete nightlife is an event planner and promoter named Mona Halem, a former employee of the Air Canada Centre, which is home to the Raptors. Ms. Halem has become "notorious" throughout the sports world, says Raptors forward Antoine Wright, for assembling attractive party guests to fete nearly every franchise that comes to town.
Last week, around midnight, not long after they'd checked into their hotel, several members of the New York Knicks put on expensive sweaters and hailed cabs to Tattoo Rock Parlour, a club in the city's "Queen West" neighborhood.
Knicks rookie Toney Douglas, who was descending the hotel elevator in a sparkling diamond necklace and a puffy vest, said he never goes out before games and isn't a fan of cold weather, but had heard from friends that Toronto, "party-wise," was one city worth making an exception for. "It's something different – it's another country," he said.
Ms. Halem, who owns a company called Lady Luck Entertainment, holds a math degree from York University and is better known to local athletes as "the boss," was hosting a party there that she'd been promoting for weeks on Facebook as "New York Meets Toronto."
Inside the club, Ms. Halem made the rounds, greeting players and making introductions. The guests of honor chatted and danced until the early morning— except for Knicks shooting guard Tracy McGrady, who left early, pronouncing Toronto "a great town" on his way out the door. The Knicks fell the next day to the Raptors 102-96.
Toronto's resident athletes say they can't go nuts on the town like their friends on visiting teams—for one thing, they're far more recognizable, and for another, the scene gets old. "It's pretty much the same people every time," says Mr. Bosh, adding that he gets "hounded" everywhere he goes.
The popularity of these parties—some athletes say they've cancelled appearances and forfeited thousands of dollars in fees to attend them—has made Ms. Halem a known entity throughout sports.
Darren Sanders, the director of security for the Baltimore Ravens—a team that hasn't even played in Toronto—says his team was told recently about the growing popularity of Toronto among athletes, and about her role in making it so. "She is definitely on the radar," he says.
This city used to be decidedly off the sports radar. The Raptors struggled mightily until the 1998 arrival of now-Orlando Magic forward Vince Carter, who helped the team set league attendance records and led it to the playoffs three years in a row. Mr. Carter also invested in a local nightclub, spurring fresh interest in the city's nightlife from musicians and other celebrities.
After Mr. Carter's departure, the Raptors struggled again until Bryan Colangelo took over as general manager and overhauled the roster. He discovered that foreign players were more than happy to trade U.S. TV time for the chance to play in a city with one of the largest Italian populations outside of Rome and direct flights to Istanbul and Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Mr. Colangelo says Toronto's growing diversity and relative freedom from paparazzi madness have made it increasingly attractive to American athletes as well. "There are some markets where guys get singled out and that sure doesn't happen here," says Mr. Colangelo. "There's a great relationship between the players and our fans and the people that watch over the city
Big things continue to happen for Toronto and we couldnt be prouder. Mona kudos to you and keep up the work.
Cheers,
TseDEY and Tia Marie
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