Rocket Men

On a warm October night this past fall, the storied Toronto Argonauts hosted one of their perennial division rivals, the Ottawa Redblacks. COVID‑19 restrictions limited capacity for the event to 15,000 fans. It was a Wednesday, which can be a tough sale for most teams, but especially for the Argos. One has to wonder what sharp minds at the CFL head office decided to schedule a mid-week game for a club in need of every break it can get. The attendance at BMO Field that evening was 6,788, a figure that speaks for itself. And while the Argonauts had billed the contest as a tribute to their championship season from thirty years prior, the game served only to demonstrate how far the Canadian Football League has fallen in the country’s largest metropolis.

The irony of celebrating Toronto’s 1991 Grey Cup in front of such a small crowd only adds to the incredulous feeling one has when reading Paul Woods’s Year of the Rocket. Parties! Celebrities! Media attention...