World Cup construction means statue of giant hawk at BMO Field needs new winter home

TORONTO – It’s not flying south for the winter, but the big hawk at BMO Field will be on the move next month.

World Cup-related construction at the south end of the lakeside stadium, set to begin after the Nov. 15 Northern Super League final, means the giant statue has to be removed. But it will be back once the stadium upgrades, including temporary seats at the north and south ends, are done.

“Where will that end up residing, we still need to figure out. But the hawk will definitely be back as part of the game presentation,” said Chris Shewfelt, MLSE’s vice-president of business operations for Toronto FC and the Toronto Argonauts.

“Fans love it. We use it pre-game. We make it a stop with all of our group tickets. They come by, take pictures with it. It’s been good from that standpoint.”

Before games, the statue faces south in the south end of the stadium, allowing for photo-ops. The hawk is turned north before kickoff, allowing it to survey the field.

“I think that’s the best spot for it,” said sculptor Trevor Farren, whose company is called Imagine Metal Art. “He’s just way up there, just like a hawk should be.”

The statue will spend the winter at TFC’s north Toronto training ground.

 At 11 feet high and 1,100 pounds, the hawk is one of Farren’s biggest creations

“I’ve got a couple of sculptures at home that are pretty huge too,” he said, referencing a dragon and praying mantis.

“But the hawk is my favourite,” he added.

It took Farren three months to make at his home in the Dundas area west of Hamilton.

The connection with MLSE came via Shewfelt, who grew up next door to Farren.

“I had this idea of this larger-than-life hawk, and I didn’t know where to go, so I called Trevor,” said Shewfelt.

“I hadn’t seen him for 20-30 years until we built the hawk,” he added. “And he did a marvellous job.”

It was painstaking work. Farren washed every piece of stainless steel by hand so it wouldn’t get contaminated by any other kind of metal in his shop.

The 54-year-old Farren began work as a welder at 16, so he has some 40 years experience in metal fabrication. He started making his own creations after he got laid off some 11 years ago.

“And I had so much steel around, I decided to build a dragon,” he explained. “Ever since I built that dragon, which I still have today at my house, I haven’t stopped making art.”

His family is big into “The Lord of the Rings” — “We think J.R. Tolkien is pretty brilliant” — so much of his art has fantasy themes.

He says his commissions took off when he posted a picture of a fire pit inspired by “The Lord of the Rings.”

“It went viral around the world. I got 40,000 likes on my business page in two weeks,” he said. “After that, things started to pick up.”

But maintaining that interest takes work.

“And that means sitting behind a desk and doing that stuff,” he noted. “And I’m not one for sitting still. I like to keep building stuff., But when it comes down it, I’ve got to sit behind a desk and do marketing and all that fun stuff.”

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) commissioned some giant wrecked Muskoka chairs, with an attached licence plate reading DRVE SOBR, for a drinking and driving campaign. Farren went to a wrecking yard to get scrap pieces of cars for the chairs.

For MLSE, he worked off a photo of a Harris’s Hawk that showed the stance of the bird that MLSE wanted.

“I eyeball it, then draw it up on the computer, and then I do the skeleton of it,” he explained. “And then I just go from there … just go to town with it.”

The big hawk debuted this season with the statue serving as a symbol of the club’s slogan, Hunt for Glory.

“The hunt for glory,” MLSE president and CEO Keith Pelley said back in January. “We have a hawk now that’s going to help us with the hunt, as you saw as you came in the building.”

The hawk has been part of the MLS club since its 2007 inception, introduced to keep the seagulls away from its lakeside home stadium. The original hawk was named Bitchy the Harris Hawk, with fans electing to stick with Bitchy despite a “Name the Hawk” promotion.

“This bird of prey has a 1.2-metre wingspan and strikes fear in the eyes of seagulls (as well as rabbits, rodents, lizards and possibly visiting teams),” the club said in 2013. “She will be watching over the club at all TFC home games.”

In 2012, the club adopted the hawk as the “symbolic overseer of BMO Field,” immortalizing it in the franchise’s academy logo.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2025