Toronto Rush Warm up the Bus backed by the biggest line up of partners in Professional Ultimate history.

The Rush are all ready to travel to DC and Philly to open their AUDL season this weekend supported by the biggest lineup of tier one sponsorships in professional Ultimate.

Telus, the Rush Platinum sponsor, is Canada's leading wireless communications company. Telus will be presenting exciting pre-game activities and will partner with the RUSH in many development activities in the ultimate community. Local businesses including Subway, Dominos Pizza, Century 21 Atria Reality Inc. and A & C Games also recognize how exciting the AUDL will be, especially when played at the beautiful home of the Rush, Varsity Stadium.

VC Ultimate, Discraft and Ulticoach are all producing custom Rush gear, discs and Rush Signature Ulticards that showcase our world class team. See you all on the road.

Feel the Rush.

Toronto Rush Joins Growing List of New Professional Canadian Sports Teams

By Aldis Brennan, Global News

TORONTO – Yet another Canadian team is poised to break into the world of professional sports.

The Toronto Rush ultimate team is set to join the American Ultimate Disc League for the 2013 season, which starts this weekend.

Better known as “ultimate Frisbee” – although the athletes tend to shy away from the brand name – ultimate is an activity often more associated with sandal-wearing students than a professional sport.

Eamonn Pinto, a member of the Toronto Rush, wants people to know that isn’t always the case.

“It is very competitive and I myself am often amazed by the athleticism in this sport,” Pinto said. “The level that the game has gotten to now is really amazing. There’s great athletes playing at a very high level and it’s showing just how far the sport can go.”

The Toronto Rush are hoping to cash in on the support of over five million ultimate fans in North America to fill Toronto’s 5,000-seat Varsity Stadium. Pinto is excited at that possibility.

“The opportunity to play on this stage with people out to watch is going to be amazing and I’m very excited for the season and I think we’re going to do very well,” Pinto said.

The team announced Wednesday that they are partnering with the University of Toronto.

“I want to thank the University of Toronto for their support and making Varsity Statement available to The Rush as our home stadium. It was always our fans number one choice,” said Rob Lloyd, chairman of the Toronto Rush.

Anita Comella, assistant dean of co-curricular physical activity and sport at U of T, thinks it will be good for the university as well.

“Ultimate and other disc sports are becoming extremely popular among our student body,” Comella said. “So it will be great to have this kind of representation and hopefully our students will get more excited and more engaged in the sport of ultimate.”

But The Rush isn’t the only Canadian team to have made it to the pros in recent history. They are following in the footsteps of other teams like the Montreal Impact, who joined Major League Soccer last year and the Vancouver Whitecaps in 2010.

In hockey, Winnipeggers were overjoyed two years ago when professional hockey returned to the city. Season tickets for the Winnipeg Jets sold out almost immediately as fans flocked back to the sport.

According to a Conference Board of Canada study, conducted by Glen Hodgson and Mario Lefebvre, the recent increase in Canadian sports teams shouldn’t come as a surprise. In fact, their research found that we could have even more in the near future.

“The future is bright for pro sports in Canada,” researchers said. “There is no reason to expect any of the existing Canadian franchises in any of the major pro sports leagues to move south of the border over the next 25 years. And there are many reasons why we can expect the number of Canadian-based franchises to grow.”

In their study, Playing in the Big Leagues, they predict that up to 15 new professional sports teams could exist in Canada by 2035. There has already been talk of the NHL expanding to Quebec City and Hamilton and the CFL has green lit an Ottawa-based team for the 2014 season.

Less likely, according to the study, is a return of the MLB in Montreal and the NBA to Vancouver.

Perhaps most surprising is the mention of professional cricket. Although not wildly popular in Canada, it is the second most popular sport in the world. According to the study authors, the sport is huge in countries that are a large source of immigration to Canada.

“While the creation of a North American professional cricket league may seem like a stretch today, the continued arrival of 200,000 or more immigrants per year over the next 25 years will alter Canada’s demographic picture significantly – and, in all likelihood, its professional sports scene as well,” said the researchers.