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The Toronto Arrows will split their home games during the 2019 Major League Rugby season between two locations. Their first four home games will take place at York University, where they have played three matches so far, with their last four moving to Lamport Stadium. Arrows President Bill Webb confirmed the change on Breakfast Television this past Friday. Tickets are set to go on sale in the coming week.
York University has been their home field since their inception, with the option of using either the grass field of York Lions Stadium or the older turf field at Alumni Stadium. Both venues are within walking distance of each other on the university campus.
York Lions Stadium, however, is set to undergo significant renovations to accommodate the incoming York 9 professional soccer franchise that will see the grass field replaced by a new turf field and the capacity raised from it’s current 3,700 to 8,000. That means Toronto’s York games will be played at Alumni Stadium in 2019, which will also be fitted with temporary expanded seating to house York 9 until September.
The change to Lamport Stadium for the final four matches of the regular season will give the Arrows an opportunity to gauge the preference of fans. Lamport Stadium is located in the King West neighborhood of downtown as opposed to York’s Keele St. home in the the western reaches of North York. Its capacity of 9,600 is significant while it received its own upgrades in 2018 including a new turf surface.
Lamport will not be unfamiliar to rugby fans in the city. The Toronto Wolfpack – a rugby league side – has called it home since their inception in 2017 with a reported average attendance of 6,900. The schedules of the two sides will overlap just once with the Wolfpack set to play their home opener against Bradford on Saturday, May 4 and the Arrows to play the San Diego Legion on Sunday, May 5.
