U.S. college football bowl game comes to Toronto

UPDATE: Cincinnati will be the Big East that will play Western Michigan in the initial International Bowl on Jan. 6 in Toronto. Cincinnati had a 7-5 record and 4-3 finish in the Big East. However, the Bearcats did upset then-No. 7 Rutgers.

The trip won't be too far for Cincinnati to travel as well. Cincinnati is 2-0 all-time against Western Michigan but the teams haven't played since 1950.

While the Cincinnati Reds have played the Toronto Blue Jays, it never happened in Toronto, so this might be the first contest involving Cincinnati in Toronto.



U.S. college football bowl games used to be concentrated in the South and West. Nice weather for the alumni and fans to spend some money. Lately, we have seen bowls cross the Mason-Dixon line. Idaho has a bowl and the Detroit area has a bowl.

Now bowl games have crossed a different line: the U.S.-Canada line. The inaugural International Bowl will be held in the Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) in Toronto.

The International Bowl will feature Western Michigan University from the Mid-American Conference. The Broncos (8-4, 6-2 MAC) were the West Division runner-up. The opponent will be a team from the Big East Conference.

Western Michigan hasn't been to a bowl game since 1988. Kalamazoo is not that far a drive for their fans and alumni, though who knows what I-94 and the 401 will look like in early January.

The bowl game will also be the first NCAA college football bowl game played outside the U.S. since the 1937 Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.

The International Bowl will be played on Saturday, January 6, 2007 with a Noon EST kickoff. The game will be televised on ESPN2 in the U.S. and TSN in Canada.