TORONTO

Admittedly, conducting an interview at 36,000 feet is a little unusual, but I was intrigued.

I had noticed some hulking, tattooed brutes in the waiting area of Gate 32 at Manchester airport in England earlier this week and had wondered who they were.

Judging by their physical appearance, they looked to be rugby players.

But just what team they played for, I had no idea. It seems most of the other passengers on Transat flight TS 207 didn’t have a clue either.

After we had boarded the plane and settled into our seats, a voice came over the PA system welcoming the Toronto Wolfpack, a rugby league team based in Brighouse, north England, to the flight.

There was a smattering of applause at the announcement — some of it coming from the players themselves — but nothing like you would expect for a pro sports team.

Clearly people — myself included — needed to know more about the Wolfpack, rugby’s first transatlantic team, headed to Toronto for the first “home” game of its inaugural season, a Saturday match-up against the “visiting” Oxford RLFC at rickety Lamport Stadium.

So once we were safely in the air, I slid in beside director of rugby Brian Noble to ask him a few questions. Like why the heck were some of the players heading to Canada in May wearing shorts? And since they were all wedged into economy class seats like the rest of us, did they have part-time jobs to help support their rugby habit?

It turns out the Wolfpack, the brain child of Torontonian and CEO Eric Perez, are the only fully professional team in the 16-team third tier of the English rugby league. Their average salary, Noble says, is around 30,000 British pounds a season. Not bad, and enough to let the players concentrate fully on rugby.

“It’s bold, it’s brave, it’s courageous, a new sport in Toronto,” Noble says over the droning plane engines and crying babies. “We know Toronto is a sports-mad city and we think they’ll love our brand.”

Bold, indeed. And a little bit unexpected given rugby league isn’t exactly a household brand in these parts.

As Noble explains, 13-man rugby league, a combination of power and speed, is the less-genteel cousin to 15-man rugby union.

“It’s probably like the NFL combined with MMA,” he says. “It’s a really, really non-stop, attractive collision sport and we think there’s a place for it in the North American psyche.”

So how did the Wolfpack convince players to join up for a team named after a city in a country many of them had never even visited before?

“They have that pioneer spirit,” Noble says. “It’s something new, it’s exciting. We haven’t had any problems recruiting quality people.”

People like Tongan Fuifui Moimoi, who was a world superstar with the NRL, jumped on board because he saw the potential, Noble says.

“We got national headlines when we signed Fuifui. He’s box office. He’s big and wild and hairy. We’ve got one of the most capped players in the history of the sport in Ryan Bailey. We really have people knocking on our door.”

Noble says the reaction to the new team in the U.K. has been very positive.

“We’re everybody’s second-favourite team at the moment. We’ve seen great traction, there’s been lots of national media coverage. It’s new, it’s something exciting and I think the game needs it,” he says.

A transatlantic league is an intriguing concept, and certainly one the major North American sports leagues have dabbled in. Noble says there is already some interest in a Montreal franchise.

“The competition would be fabulous if that could happen,” he says.

Meanwhile, the Toronto franchise has agreed to pay the expenses for the visiting teams, which will stay at York University, while the home side will bunk down in the residences of George Brown College.

“Our ownership group, including David Argyle (an Australian mining entrepreneur and Toronto resident), have put the money together to fly teams from the U.K. to Toronto and back again,” Noble says.

The hope is the 5-0 Wolfpack, comprised mostly of Britons, will win promotion to the second-tier Championship after this season and then move on to the elite Super League.

“We’re confident with the squad we’ve built,” Noble says. “We want to be in the top table. We’ve built this team to get out of this division as quickly as possible.”

And as for the wearing of the shorts? Well, rugby players are just tough I guess.