It just wasn’t that the Whitecaps gave up five. Jozy Altidore was rampant, scoring a hat trick. The Reds were as sharp offensively as they've been all season. But, wow, were the Whitecaps bad. Awful. Insipid.

But, what makes this final hard to take, well, it’s because CONCACAF just had to go and go all 1970s NASL with the format. It’s ridiculous that a continental club championship doesn’t provide for extra time to be played if the two teams are level after two legs. To go straight to penalty kicks… ugh. Give the players 30 more minutes to try and decide a championship in an 11-v-11 environment.

They’re at BMO field, in the lousy, blustery rainy weather. Before the game, at some point, you'd think manager Miguel Herrera and his staff would have looked at some video of Toronto FC in action, and thought to themselves, “wow, Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco can really burn you on the counter.”

Back in the day, when Toronto FC was a brand-spankin’ new team, it developed a rivalry with, of all teams, the Columbus Crew. There was no rhyme or reason for it; if you look in the history books, there is no mention of the great Columbus/Toronto war.

And this is exactly what MLS needs. It needs Toronto FC to be the foil. That’s the thing with MLS. With central control of contracts, with all franchises trotted out in Adidas gear, it’s always had the feel of a bunch of branch plants playing each other. What MLS needs is a New York Yankees, a Manchester United, a New England Patriots or Dallas Cowboys, a super-team that, outside of its fan base, is absolutely loathed.

Trust me. I’m Canadian. And, as a Canadian, I know all about missing World Cups.

History has shown us that teams that get to championship games and lose, well, they tend to really struggle the year after that. Statistically speaking, Toronto FC’s season was doomed before it even began. So, how do the Reds buck the trend and make it back to MLS Cup — and win?

For the better part of a decade, supporting Toronto FC was an exercise in futility. But, after getting to within one Stefan Frei fingertip from winning MLS Cup, expectations are high in Canada’s largest city. Where do the Reds go from here?

At the 67-minute mark, the score was 3-0 for the Impact, the Big O was rocking, and it was looking like the second leg at BMO Field was going to be nothing but a formality — a wake by the lake

On April 7, 2007, Toronto FC played the first regular-season match in club history, a loss on the road to Chivas USA. Ken Tribbett was 14 years old when that happened.