The Toronto Toros were an ice hockey team based in Toronto that played in the World Hockey Association from 1973 to 1976.
History
The franchise was awarded to Doug Michel in 1971 for $25,000 to play in the WHA's inaugural 1972–73 season. Harold Ballard, owner of Maple Leaf Gardens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, offered to rent the arena to the team if it was located in Toronto, but Michel found the rent excessive. He then tried to base the team in Hamilton, but the city did not have an appropriate venue. It was obvious that Ballard was angered at the WHA being literally in his backyard, and took his frustration on the renegade league out on the Toros.
Despite the financial difficulties, the Toros managed to strengthen themselves in the off-season. They signed two ex-Leafs: former NHL superstar Frank Mahovlich and the hero from the 1972 Summit Series, Paul Henderson, as well as Czech star Vaclav Nedomansky, who defected to Toronto. Tom Simpson became the first professional hockey player in Toronto to have a 50-goal season, scoring 52 goals (a number he would never come close to matching again). The Toros finished the year with the league's fifth-best record at 43–33–2, but were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by the San Diego Mariners. The Toros were now averaging 10,000 fans per home game. Notably, the Toros staged an event during the intermission of a Toros game where stunt rider Evel Knievel took four shots (worth $5,000 each) against a Toro goaltender (originally meant to be Gilles Gratton but instead it was done by Les Binkley); Knievel went 2-for-4.
In part due to the expenses associated with playing in the Gardens, the Toros bottomed out in the 1975–76 season. They finished with a horrible 24-52-5 record—the worst in the league—under their head coach Bobby Baun, despite Nedomansky's 56 goals and the signing of 18-year-old Mark Napier, who scored 93 points in his rookie year. The Toros still averaged over 8,000 fans per game, which was a 20 percent drop from the previous year.
In the middle of the 1976 WHA playoffs, team president John F. Bassett announced that the team would relocate, stating that they had lost an average of nearly $1.5 million a year, compacted with having just 3,600 season ticket holders for a venue in the Gardens that housed over 16,000 and charged $15,000 rent per game. A ticket drive aimed at getting 7,500 tickets sold less than half the target, which was likely hindered by the looming expansion franchise in baseball for the city. Bassett that the five sites in mind were Ottawa, St. Paul, Birmingham, Miami, and Milwaukee. Bassett moved the club to Birmingham, Alabama, where they were renamed the Birmingham Bulls for the 1976–77 season. The last active Toros player in the NHL was Mark Napier, who last played in the NHL in the 1988–89 NHL season and retired in 1993 in Italy. As well, Toros draft pick Kent Nilsson played his last NHL game in 1995 and retired in Europe in 1998, but never played for Toronto in the WHA.
Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes
{| cellpadding=5
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
| Season || GP || W || L || T || Pts || GF || GA ||PIM || Finish || Playoffs
|-
| 1973–74 ||78|| 41|| 33|| 4||86||304|| 272|| 871|| 2nd, Eastern ||Won Quarterfinals (Crusaders) <br> Lost Semifinals (Cougars)
|-bgcolor="#eeeeee"
| 1974–75 ||78|| 43|| 33|| 2||88||349|| 304|| 883|| 2nd, Canadian ||Lost Quarterfinals (Mariners)
|-
| 1975–76 ||81|| 24|| 52|| 5||53||335|| 398||1099|| 4th, Canadian ||Did not qualify
|- bgcolor="#dddddd"
| Totals || 237 || 108 || 118 || 11 || 227 || 988 || 974 || 2853
|| ||
|}
Hall of famers
thumb|Nedomanský for the Toronto Toros of the WHA in 1975.
- Frank Mahovlich; 1974–1976 (inducted 1981)
- Vaclav Nedomansky; 1974–1976 (inducted 2019)
See also
- List of Toronto Toros players
- List of ice hockey teams in Ontario