Rogers Centre rolls out green carpet for Toronto FC

Michael Woods Staff Reporter

Toronto FC is covering new ground Wednesday night: their match against the Los Angeles Galaxy is their first at the Rogers Centre.

The actual ground theyre covering not the stadiums usual baseball turf is also newly-installed: this time last week, the pitch was mere concrete.

It took 25 workers about 36 hours to lay down the soccer playing surface late last week. The temporary lines demarcating the field were painted on Sunday, just in time for Toronto FCs first practice there on Monday.

The whirlwind installation seems like a daunting task. But for Frank Grespan, whos been the director of conversions at the dome since before the stadium was built, its all part of the job.

It takes months and months of planning, actually, he said. The average fan out there doesnt understand the work that goes in.

Rogers Centre has nine full-time workers who operate the hydraulically-powered equipment needed to convert the stadium between sports.

Especially for this match, 16 more temporary workers were brought in to first tape down granulated rubber to the concrete, to soften the playing surface.

(Toronto FCs) coaching staff probably felt that the turf itself was a little bit too hard on the concrete, so they wanted to soften it up a little bit, Grespan said. The surface also features silica sand, which gives the rubber its weight.

Stadium staff then put a stiff layer of plastic on top of the rubber so that they could slide turf rolls on top together perfectly, without any seams between them. The turf surface is made up of 50 separate rolls, which weigh between 8,000 and 11,000 pounds depending on the length.

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Rogers Centre rolls out green carpet for Toronto FC