Mayor John Tory believes there will be no pro sports in Toronto before fall

When the NHL announced that Toronto could be a potential landing spot for teams to resume play, it gave a lot of people hope that they could be back to watching the game they love so much sooner rather than later.

Well, if you were among those celebrating the prospect of hockey resuming in Toronto, you may want to sit down for this one, because the Mayor of Toronto, John Tory, has addressed this very topic on Sportsnet's "Writers Bloc" podcast.

"I would just say to people, don't hold your hopes out that you're going to see professional sports played in Toronto, even in front of an empty stadium, before sometime into the fall," Tory said.

Though the Leafs and the league have been in contact with the city to lay their plans for a possible return in the coming weeks and months, Tory stated that talks were merely preliminary and that there has not been anything finalized or approved just yet.

"They described to us about how that would work with teams staying in hotels and going back and forth in busses and all of this, and we've really not heard much more about it," Tory said. "Suffice it to say, in respect of a lot of things, we are not contemplating any situation in which there would be large crowd scenes."

If you count yourself among those who feel deflated after reading Tory's comments, don't worry. It does not mean that hockey will not return this summer, it simply means that it may not be in Toronto. Several other cities are still in the process of constructing a plan to see pro sports return.

Tory did concede that the situation could change, but he also doubled down on fall as a more realistic target for games to take place in Toronto.

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