Canadian National Exhibition Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium that formerly
stood on the Exhibition Place grounds, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Originally
built for Canadian football, the Canadian National Exhibition and other
events, the stadium served as the home of the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League
Baseball from 1977–1989. It also served as the home of the Toronto Argonauts, of
the Canadian Football League, from 1959–1988. The stadium hosted the Grey
Cup game twelve times over a 24-year period.
In 1999, the stadium was demolished and the site was used for parking until
2006. BMO Field, a soccer-specific stadium for Toronto FC, was built on the
site in 2007, roughly where the northern end of the covered grandstand once
stood. The parking lot immediately south of BMO Field has plaques embedded in the
pavement where home plate and the other three bases were once located.
The grandstand was used extensively throughout the summer months for hosting
concerts. History
= The Grandstand= Exhibition Stadium was the fourth
stadium to be built on its site since 1879. When the original grandstand was
lost due to a fire in 1906, it was quickly rebuilt. A second fire destroyed
the stadium in 1947, which led to the city constructing a covered north-side
grandstand for $3 million in 1948. = Expansion for CFL football=
When the Toronto Argonauts moved from Varsity Stadium for the 1959 season, a
smaller $650,000 bleacher section was added along the south sideline. In this
form the stadium seated 33,150. The inaugural game at the renovated
Exhibition Stadium was an exhibition interleague game between the hometown
Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League and the Chicago
Cardinals of the National Football League on August 5, 1959. The game was
the first time a NFL team played in Toronto. It was also the first NFL–CFL
exhibition match held since the establishment of the CFL in 1958, and
marked the beginning of a three year, four game exhibition series between the
leagues. When the 58th Grey Cup was played at the
stadium in 1970, Calgary Stampeders coach Jim Duncan described the condition
of the natural-grass surface as "a disgrace." In January 1972, Metropolitan
Toronto Council voted 15–9 to spend $625,000 to install artificial turf. The
vote passed despite five councilors changing their vote to oppose the
motion, because the cost had increased from a previous estimate of $400,000.
Two months later, contracts totaling $475,000 were approved to install the
turf, with work to be completed by June. = Reconfiguration for baseball=
In 1974 the city voted to reconfigure the stadium to make it compatible for
baseball, leading to the arrival of Major League Baseball in Toronto in 1977
in the form of the Toronto Blue Jays. Originally planned to cost $15 million
before growing to $17.5 million, the renovations, which were funded by the
city and province, added seating opposite to the covered grandstand on
the first base side and curving around to the third base side. Football
capacity was increased from 33,000 to 55,000. For baseball, it originally
seated 38,522, but by the Blue Jays' second season it increased to 43,739.
However, only about 33,000 seats were used during the regular season.
However, Exhibition Stadium, in its new form, was problematic both for hosting
baseball and for football. Indeed, Blue Jays' President Paul Beeston noted
Exhibition Stadium "wasn't just the worst stadium in baseball, it was the
worst stadium in sports." Baseball problems
As at most multi-purpose stadiums, the lower boxes were set further back than
comparable seats at baseball-only stadiums in order to accommodate the
wider football field. Compared to U.S. stadiums, this was magnified by the fact
that Canadian football fields are considerably larger than American
football fields. Many of the seats down the right field line and in right-centre
were extremely far from the infield; they actually faced each other rather
than the action. In fact, some seats were as far as 820 feet from home plate
— the greatest such distance of any stadium ever used as a principal home
field in the major leagues. As the original grandstand was used for the
outfield seats, these were the cheapest seats but were the only ones that
offered protection from the elements;the Blue Jays were the only MLB team using
such a stadium. Football problems
Because the full length of the third-base line had to be fitted between
the north stand and the new south stand, they could no longer be parallel to each
other. As a compromise between placements suitable for the two stands,
the football field was rotated anticlockwise away from the north stand.
Thus the only seats as close to the field as before were those near the
eastern end zone, and no seats had as good a view of the whole field as the
centre-field seats before the conversion.
= Problems with the wind and cold= Relatively close to Lake Ontario, the
stadium was often quite cold at the beginning and end of the baseball
season. The first Blue Jays game played there on April 7, 1977 was the only
major league game ever played with the field covered entirely by snow. The Blue
Jays had to borrow Maple Leaf Gardens' Zamboni to clear off the field.
Conditions at the stadium led to another odd incident that first year. On
September 15, Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver pulled his team off the
field because he felt the bricks holding down the bullpen tarps were a hazard to
his players. This garnered a win by forfeit for the Jays. It remains the
last time in major league baseball history — and the only time since 1914 —
that a team deliberately forfeited a game.
An April 30, 1984 game against the Texas Rangers was postponed due to 60 mph
winds. Prior to the game, Ranger manager Doug Rader named Jim Bibby as his
starting pitcher, stating that "he's the heaviest man in the world, and thus will
be unaffected by the wind." However, Bibby would never make it to the mound.
Two Rangers batters complained about dirt swirling in their eyes, and Blue
Jays starting pitcher Jim Clancy was blown off balance several times. The
umpires stopped the game after only six pitches. After a 30-minute delay, the
game was called off. The stadium also occasionally had
problems with fog, once causing a bizarre inside-the-park home run for
Kelly Gruber, when an otherwise routine pop up was lost by the outfielders in
the thick fog. = As a popular feeding ground for
seagulls= Due to its position next to the lake,
and the food disposed by baseball and football fans, the stadium was a popular
feeding ground for seagulls. New York Yankees outfielder Dave Winfield was
arrested on August 4, 1983 for killing a seagull with a baseball. Winfield had
just finished his warm-up exercises in the 5th inning and threw a ball to the
ball boy, striking a seagull in the head. The seagull died, and some claimed
that Winfield hit the bird on purpose, which prompted Yankees manager Billy
Martin to state "They wouldn't say that if they'd seen the throws he'd been
making all year. It's the first time he's hit the cutoff man". The charges
were later dropped. Winfield would later play for the Blue Jays, winning a World
Series with the club in 1992. = 70th Grey Cup and replacement=
Exhibition Stadium's fate was sealed during the 70th Grey Cup in 1982,
popularly known as "the Rain Bowl" because it was played in a driving
rainstorm that left most of the crowd drenched. Many of the seats were
completely exposed to the elements, forcing thousands of fans to watch the
game in the concession section. To make matters worse, the washrooms overflowed.
In attendance that day was then-Ontario Premier Bill Davis, and the poor
conditions were seen by over 7,862,000 television viewers in Canada. The
following day, at a rally at Toronto City Hall, tens of thousands of people
who were there to see the Toronto Argonauts began to chant, "We want a
dome! We want a dome!" So too did others who began to discuss the possibility of
an all-purpose, all-weather stadium. Seven months later, in June 1983,
Premier Davis formally announced that a three-person committee would look into
the feasibility of building a domed stadium at Exhibition Place. The
committee consisted of Paul Godfrey, Larry Grossman and former Ontario Hydro
chairman Hugh Macaulay. By 1983, officials with Metro Toronto, the Blue
Jays and Argonauts agreed to abandon Exhibition Stadium once a domed stadium
could be built closer to Toronto's downtown, which would eventually become
SkyDome. Life following the opening of SkyDome
Exhibition Stadium lay mostly dormant over the decade following the opening of
SkyDome, except for the occasional concert or minor sporting event. The
World Wrestling Federation, needing a new venue after a decision to
discontinue events at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1995, held one card at the stadium on
August 24, 1996 for a crowd of 21,211. The main event was Shawn Michaels vs.
Goldust in a ladder match. The stadium was demolished in 1999 and
the site is now the location of BMO Field and a parking lot. A few chairs
from the stadium can be found on the southeast corner just north of the
bridge to Ontario Place's main entrance. The remaining chairs were sold off to
collectors during the dismantling of the stadium.
The "Mistake by the Lake" Although not widely used while the
stadium was in operation, the term "Mistake by the Lake" has been used more
recently in reflection by Toronto media to refer to the now-demolished venue.
New stadium On October 26, 2005, the City of Toronto
approved $69 million CAD to build BMO Field, a new 20,000 seat stadium, in
almost the same spot where the old stadium once was. The governments of
Canada and Ontario combined for $35 million CAD, with the city paying $9.8
million CAD, and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment paying the rest, including
any runoff costs. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment got the naming rights of
the new stadium, and has a Major League Soccer team in the new stadium, named
Toronto FC. The stadium also held the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup along with
other cities in Canada. Chevrolet Beach Volleyball Centre
For the 2015 Pan American Games and Parapan American Games, the old stadium
footprint became the Chevrolet Beach Volleyball Centre. The temporary venue
had bleachers and a playing area filled with 3000 metric tonnes of sand. After
the Pan American Games, the venue was torn down to allow for setup of rides
and restore parking spaces for the 2015 Canadian National Exhibition opening on
August 21 of the same year. Facts and figures
On July 18, 1958, Richard Petty made the first of 1,184 starts in NASCAR Grand
National competition in a race at the grandstand, entitled the 1958 Jim Mideon
500. The stadium was featured on a Season 4
Route 66 episode titled "A Long Way from St. Louie" which first aired on December
6, 1963. While on a helicopter tour over downtown Toronto, Tod Stiles and Linc
Case spot a quintet of girl musicians, who were stranded in the city, sleeping
on the benches in the covered north grandstand.
1967 saw the Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo 1967 perform 8 shows at the
stadium to standing ovations every night. So popular with crowds at the
stadium of 30,000 most nights, the 89-year-old never on Sunday taboo had to
be waived to permit the Tattoo to put on a Sunday September 3rd performance to
accommodate the extraordinary demand for tickets. John Holden, a CNE official
stated, “It was breathtaking. You just can’t compare it with the like of
anything that has come before it.” CNE General Manager Bert Powell stated,
“We’ve never had anything like it — fabulous and fantastic. My phone is
never quiet. I’m even getting professional critics and entertainers
begging for tickets, and that’s the ultimate tribute.”
Soccer Bowl '81 was played at Exhibition Stadium.
In 1982, the 70th Grey Cup game held at the stadium had the largest number of
television viewers in Canadian history, with 7,862,000. The record has since
been broken. The Jacksons performed three concerts at
the stadium on October 5, 6 and 7, 1984 during their Victory Tour.
In 1985, the first Game 7 in the history of the American League Championship
Series was played at the stadium. The Blue Jays lost to the Kansas City
Royals, 6–2. In August 1986, the stadium played host
to the World Wrestling Federation's "Big Event" card in front of over 70,000
fans. The main event was then-World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan against
Paul Orndorff. This event did not air on pay-per-view.
Madonna brought to the stadium her Who's That Girl World Tour on July 4, 1987 to
a sold out crowd of 50,013 people. Metallica and Guns N' Roses performed at
the stadium as part of the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour on
September 13, 1992, with Faith No More as the opening act.
Paul McCartney brought his New World Tour to the stadium on June 6, 1993. It
would be his last show in Canada until April 2002.
^ A. Game was suspended with 9:29 remaining in the fourth quarter due to
extremely dense fog, and completed the next day.
See also Rogers Centre
Exhibition Place Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto Argonauts Toronto FC
BMO Field Notes
References External links
Virtual Walking tour of Exhibition Place Overhead photo of Exhibition Stadium
BallparksOfBaseball.com Ballparks.com
Several photos including CNE racetrack configuration
Baseball field diagram Football configuration
Video about Exhibition Stadium