TORONTO – As part of TFC Awareness Month, the players of the Toronto Football Club have begun door knocking across the Greater Toronto Area.
“Hi there! My name is Jozy Altidore. Have you heard the good news about our Toronto Football Club?” said the star forward to a beleaguered elderly couple on the front porch of their Etobicoke home, before being given a curt “not interested.”
According to head coach Greg Vanney, the campaign is an opportunity to reach out to Torontonians about an important and overlooked issue, the fact that they actually have another championship-calibre sports team.
“Since winning a championship, appearing in two others, setting the league record for points, and almost winning the CONCACAF Champions League doesn’t seem to be enough to get the attention of Torontonians, we thought we’d reach out to them directly to get them on board with this important issue,” added Vanney, handing out clipboards to the team’s midfielders as they exited his minivan.
Responses at the door have been mixed, say the seven-time Canadian championship winners.
“Most people are okay, I guess,” said midfielder Michael Bradley, taking a swig from a thermos as he left a brochure in the mailbox of an empty home.
“But others…one person chewed me out for almost ten minutes about Justin Trudeau,” explained the MLS all-star and American national team player. “I told them that I wasn’t with them, and that the election had already happened, and somehow that just made them angrier.”
Other teammates report that in addition to being uninformed, but generally welcoming, people were happy to tell them unprompted that they were happy with their energy provider and insistent that their ducts did not need cleaning.
But the team is not deterred.
“I’m sorry,” one woman told Canadian midfielder Jonathan Osario, “but we’ve already made a charitable contribution to the Toronto Argos this year.”
