Toronto Star
Apr. 20, 2005. 01:00 AM
Lynx taking a long route home
Open with six matches on the road
Centennial Park grass not yet playable
ALLAN RYAN
SPORTS REPORTER
Still kicking around after all these years, the Toronto Lynx open their ninth season this weekend, but they'll be six games deep into their schedule before local soccer fans can check them out first-hand.
The Lynx have to visit a few places first — like Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, back-to-back this Saturday and Sunday. Then Richmond and Virginia Beach the weekend after that. And Charleston and Atlanta the weekend after that, again back-to-back.
Something about grass taking a little longer to reach playable conditions in these northerly climes.
"Normally, the Victoria Day weekend's the earliest we can get in," said director of sales and marketing Michael LeBlanc, meaning at Etobicoke's Centennial Park. "We even had to push to get in there May 15 (the home opener against the United Soccer Leagues' First Division defending champs, the Montreal Impact).
"The start of the season also seems to keep getting pushed a week earlier and earlier, so, if we don't do these games on the road now, the season gets more and more crunched towards the middle.
"Then, if we're fighting for a playoff spot in August, the team's exhausted because it's playing three games a week."
Which probably won't be too unlike playing games back-to-back for each of the first three weekends.
Aware his team could find itself behind the eight-ball even before it has played a home game, new head coach Hubert Busby Jr., goalkeeper for the Lynx in 1998, has stressed fitness and will rely on speed in an attempt to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2000.
"We've done our best to simulate the back-to-back games, too," said Busby, noting the team's recent pre-season trek to Rochester last Saturday (a 2-0 loss), then a five-hour bus ride to Ottawa, where they trimmed a local amateur team 4-0.
While nine seasons is a decent enough haul for any pro soccer team in Toronto, the Lynx are counting heavily on reaching 11, when the new 25,000-seat facility opens at York University in 2007.
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