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The Toronto Phantoms were a professional arena football team based in Toronto. The team was a member of the Eastern Division of the National Conference of the Arena Football League (AFL). The team also previously operated in New York City and Hartford, Connecticut.
Despite the failure of the New York Knights in 1988, the AFL decided once again to make an effort to establish a team in the nation's largest media market, and granted a franchise to the New York CityHawks prior to the 1997 season. The major circumstance that differentiated this situation from that of the Knights was that the CityHawks were owned by Madison Square Garden, while the Knights had been tenants at the Garden.
In response to the AFL's placing a team in New Jersey, the Madison Square Garden ownership requested a team of its own. This request was granted by the league with only months to go before the beginning of the 1997 season, while the New Jersey team had been founded several months earlier. The CityHawks thus had only half the preparation time that the Red Dogs had going into both teams' initial season of 1997.
In 1998, the CityHawks replaced Kuharich with veteran NCAA coach Chuck Shelton, who was taking his first Arena Football job. However, the team fared almost as poorly as they had done the first season, winning only 3 of 14 games.
In addition, the CityHawks were the first AFL team to have different helmets for home and road games. In 1997, they wore their gold helmets at home, with black jerseys and gold pants; and wore the reverse on the road: black helmets, gold jerseys, black pants. In 1998, they adopted a one-color scheme, dressing in all black at home, and in all gold on the road.
The team did little better financially in New England than it had in New York, and was sold to new owners, who relocated it to Toronto after the 2000 season.
All home games were played at the Air Canada Centre, also the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association, and the Toronto Rock of the National Lacrosse League. The team's primary rival was the Buffalo Destroyers, located 80 miles south in Buffalo.
The Phantoms' logo included a Grim Reaper character whose scythe carried the word "Toronto" with the word "Phantoms" appearing over it. The name came from The Phantom of the Opera, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that played at the Canon Theatre (then Pantages Theatre) in Toronto for nine years. The name was also a nod to minority owner Ronnie Strasser, whose family owned Phantom Industries, a women's hosiery company.
In 2001, the Phantoms posted a reasonable 8–6 record, winning the AFL Eastern Division Championship, and making the playoffs. They would beat the New York Dragons in the first round of the playoffs; however, they would lose to the Georgia Force in the second round.
In 2002, they went 5–9, missing the playoffs. Following the season, Rogers announced that they were suspending operations of the franchise. The Phantoms drew an average of just 6,976 fans per game over their two seasons at Air Canada Centre. Six years later, Rogers entered into a five-year sharing agreement with Ralph Wilson to lease Wilson's NFL Buffalo Bills to Rogers for an annual regular season game in exchange for cash, marking the return of American football to Canada, after a fashion.
Among the notable Phantoms players were Offensive Specialist Damian Harrell, fullback/linebacker Jermaine Younger, as well as defensive back/wide receiver Ty Law (unrelated to the Ty Law). During their time in Toronto, these players were not widely recognized in an already congested sports market.
| Toronto Phantoms Hall of Famers | ||||
| 1997 | ||||
| 1999–2000 | ||||
| 1999–2002 | ||||
| Kicker of the Year | |||
| Placekicker | |||
| Lary Kuharich | 2 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Chuck Shelton | 3 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Mike Hohensee | – | 13 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| Mark Stoute | – | 13 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
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