Published: December 09, 2008 09:21 pm      

LUCINSKI: Toronto game was a sell out

Sold out. That could technically describe the house at Toronto’s Rogers Centre on Sunday. Although there were patches of fans disguised as empty seats, all the tickets had been officially accounted for.

But that’s not the definition of “sold out” we need to talk about here. What we’re discussing is how the Buffalo Bills organization sold out its fans, its players and, in a way at least, the National Football League.

Sunday was the first regular season game of the Bills’ five-year Toronto series played north of the border. It was played indoors, in a retractable dome that was closed because it was a little cold and windy that day. While the Bills had said they were happy to be out of the elements, their opponents, the Miami (as in Florida) Dolphins were absolutely thrilled.

Now this was supposed to be a home game for Buffalo. Home games in December in Buffalo are tests of will and endurance. I’ve stood on the photographers’ deck at Ralph Wilson Stadium in mid-December with the temperature in the mid-teens and the winds blowing in the mid-30 mph range while 17,000 hardy fans watched the Bills take on the Baltimore (yes, Baltimore) Colts. Pleasant? No. It was more than that. It was us.

What you witnessed on television Sunday evening was not Bills winter ball. It was some weird event, similar to the game earlier in the season in St. Louis at their dome there. Only this was supposed to be a home game. It wasn’t.

The normally reserved Canadian fans lived up to their billing. There was little cheering when the Bills took the field. There was only tepid enthusiasm for the home team. Even the Bills players said the usual 12th Man, the fans who cheer the team on, was AWOL on Sunday. While that might not have made a difference in their terrible performance on the field, it did nothing for what should have been the team’s home field advantage.

And, adding insult to injury, most accounts said that there appeared to be at least as many Dolphins fans as there were Bills backers. That borders on blasphemy at, again, what was supposed to be a home game.

Gazette Sports Editor Tim Schmitt observed that Bills fever was something less that contagious in the lead-up to what was supposed to be a historic contest. Tim said, “The front page of the Toronto Star’s sports section did have a story about the Bills, but it was a tiny strip on the bottom of the front page.” And it focused on a marginal player from Canada being put on the Bills’ roster. The big story: The National Hockey League’s Toronto Maple Leafs losing Saturday night to the Washington Capitals. Hockey will always be king in Canada.

But the Bills and the NFL got what they wanted: Cash. The folks in Toronto give the Bills more than $9 million per game to play there. That’s said to be about two or three times what the team rakes in for a game played in Orchard Park.

So for all that silver and gold, the Bills and the league got a bland game with no character witnessed by fans who didn’t particularly care about the home team and added nothing to the team’s morale or performance.

To someone who has followed this team for its entire existence, listening to its first exhibition game in 1960 on a tinny transistor radio to witnessing Sunday’s travesty on television, it’s as if the soul has been sucked out of the Buffalo Bills. Granted, it’s hard to tell how much the team’s poor play on the field had to do with the disillusionment. But a listless crowd, a terrible team and the knowledge that it’s all driven by the dollar (Cdn.) are nearly enough to discourage the best of Bills fans from enjoying the team.

While Sunday might have been a corporate and financial success for the Bills and for the NFL, it might have been an even bigger loss: The loss of the emotion that ties us to the team. And if that continues, that would be a loss for the team, the league and for those of us whose lives have been intertwined with the Bills for nearly half a century.

Dick Lucinski is the managing editor of the Niagara Gazette. His columns appear on Wednesday and Sunday.