TORONTO - Toronto FC went 1-2-2 during an injury-plagued Florida training camp, coming home to a frozen tundra. Star striker Jermain Defoe has yet to touch down and fellow marquee signings Michael Bradley and Gilberto have been hampered by injury. Goalie Julio Cesar is on international duty with Brazil in South Africa and backup forward Bright Dike is already probably out for the season after tendon surgery. Manager Ryan Nelsen has been down three fullbacks and three strikers. Minor niggles have turned into more bothersome setbacks. Its meant extra minutes for some players and new positions for others. For an MLS franchise that has gone all-in on the transfer market in a bid to finally make the playoffs after seven seasons of failure and a woeful 51-105-66 record, there is still much work to do. The good news is Toronto has a bye this weekend when 16 clubs kick off the 2014 season. Toronto opens March 15 in Seattle. "We planned that brilliantly," Nelsen said dryly after practice Tuesday under the bubble at the teams well-appointed north Toronto training ground. Nelsen, in his second year at the helm, has managed to find some positives in the rocky pre-season. "It did expose our weaknesses," he said. "You always get exposed at some part of the season, whether its injuries or suspensions or international call-ups or something like that." "We know what we have, we know what we need to be and where we need to get to," he added. "Its good to know now rather than a quarter or halfway through the season. "Well be a different animal come the 15th but in the back of my mind, its a nice thing to know moving forward." Depth is an issue. Toronto can field an impressive starting 11 but pre-season has already shown that the wrong combination of injuries at the wrong position can cause havoc. The team remains very much a work in progress. Even MLSsoccer.com, which ranked TFC 17th out of 19 teams in its weekly "power rankings," has Toronto 14th in its pre-season list. "Were not all aboard the bandwagon just yet," said the website. Nelsen, whose team went 6-17-11 last season, says he doesnt concern himself with "outside voices." But the former New Zealand international knows that whipping up a gourmet meal is more than just buying the right ingredients. "Just because you make some changes, its not like a light switch. It does take time," he said. "Thats the beauty of sport. "But in saying that we fully expect to get where we want to be. And if you think the expectations are high outside, theyre probably higher inside. But we know its hard and we know its a journey to get to." The pre-season injury list has included forwards Gilberto (quadricep) and Dike (tendon), midfielders Jonathan Osorio (flu) and Daniel Lovitz (knee) and fullbacks Mark Bloom (quadricep), Bradley Orr (calf) and Justin Morrow (hip). Bradley, who withdrew from the U.S squad to face Ukraine in Cyprus, is nursing a minor foot issue. More worrying for Nelsen is the fact that the injuries to Bloom and Orr started as minor issues but got worse. "Well definitely be addressing it," Nelsen said. "You always get niggles and you always get injuries but theyre re-injuries. When you re-do an injury, its major cause for concern." Nelsen expects everyone to be ready for the season. Defoe, the former Tottenham star, is expected to join the team after Wednesdays England friendly against Denmark. "As soon as he plays the game for England, hell be on a plane over," said Nelsen. Still, that means a longer road for team chemistry. Although, unlike past off-seasons, Torontos transaction list has been relatively short and very select. Bradley, Defoe, Gilberto, Cesar, Morrow, Jackson, Orr, and veteran midfielder Dwayne De Rosario are all targeted as starters. 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Working with UFC welterweight fighter Demian Maias team in Sao Paulo Brazil and having training partners such as fellow UFC stand outs Fabio Maldonado and Daniel Sarafian, the 32-year old feels very well prepared for Friday nights encounter.TORONTO - Once Toller Cranston left the ice behind, he focused his restless creative ingenuity on art — an all-consuming enterprise that he wryly referred to as his terrifying obsession.The floridly innovative figure-skating great died at his home in Mexico on the weekend of an apparent heart attack at age 65.Even while marching to uncommon acclaim as a figure skater, he attended art school and conducted a career in art.Once he retired, Cranston funnelled all his boundless energy into painting. He painted with such prolific intensity that his output is now most often characterized by its staggering volume.Terrifying Obsession was the name Cranston suggested for an exhibition of his work, which was being prepped for a cross-Canadian museum tour prior to his death, according to longtime agent Christopher Talbot.And Cranston, always at odds with the figure-skating establishment, would have derived great validation from finally being accepted by arts old guard.I think his fondest wish would have been to have a show at a real, proper establishment art gallery, said Canadian fashion pillar Jeanne Beker, one of Cranstons closest friends, in a telephone interview from Paris on Wednesday.That was his dream: to have something at the Art Gallery of Ontario or somewhere, some retrospective, something. He felt he deserved to be there.He always felt that the world saw him as a skater first and an artist second. And it really drove him crazy.Talbot, who sometimes communicated with Cranston on a daily basis about his work, agreed.In his mind — and its maybe only in his mind — he never achieved the status he should have had as a figure skater. And he really wanted that as a visual artist, said Talbot, president and founder of Art Evolution Gallery, in a telephone interview from California.If Cranston never lived to see that recognition, it certainly wasnt for lack of effort.He retired from skating in 1997, more than a half-decade after his move to a sprawling compound in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. During the later stages of his skating career — and especially afterwards — Cranston was consumed by art.Friends recall an almost exclusionary drive. As Talbot tells it, Cranston was a fish out of water any time he was dragged from his work.Terrifying obsession really encapsulated Tollers role as an artist, Talbot said.He was just tenacious. He drove himself relentlessly. ... He couldnt stop.Cranstons Mexican home — or his little Shangri-La, as Beker calls it — became an overstuffed testament to his passion, even after he sold off a major part of his collection while still living in Toronto.A characteristically idiosyncratic sanctuary, Cranstons walled-in property was blanketed by a lush, professionally maintained garden. Inside, it was overgrown with artwork — by Cranston and by others, especially local Mexican artists whose work he acquired voraciously.Every square inch of his house, marvelled Talbot. If you look at a wall, you cant tell what colour it is because theres that much art on it.Beker recalls marvelling as Cranston bought works in an almost hedonistic fashion, collecting local artisans painted bowls and dishes and glass art, which hed hang from the ceiling.If he saw something he liked hed want to buy not one but 10 or 20, she recalled.I often felt that I was in the middle of a Toller Cranston painting when I was sitting there in his garden or one of his rooms.dddddddddddd They would envelope you that way.In Cranstons estimation, his artistic style evolved little over a lifetime spent furiously creating — simply because it started off so clearly defined.As Cranston explains in an interview on the Art Evolution website, his colourful compositions grew from an interest in Eastern influences that he established at an unusually young age (specifically, he references Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Turkestan).The inclination, the subject matter, the concepts, the sense of colour, the people, the worlds, the imagery — miraculously — was in evidence when I was six years of age, Cranston said.Every painting (Ive done from) when I was six until now when Im 58, seems to come from that very same world.If nothing else, then, his work was distinctive. And his proponents argue that should count for something.No one was painting like that, said Michelle Kirkegaard, Canadian art adviser and owner of the Adele Campbell Gallery, a Whistler, B.C., space that has hosted exhibitions of Cranstons work. Anyone that has seen a painting, without seeing the signature, could say: Thats a Toller Cranston. And I think thats a sign of a very disciplined, mature and creative individual.The Cranston signature style had no shortage of devotees, people who spent thousands of dollars to acquire his work.Cranstons hunger for the validation of the art establishment, however, wouldnt be sated in his lifetime.In the echelons of the art world, the top level of which would be official recognition — he wasnt part of that world. He was loved by the people who collected his work, said celebrated Toronto artist Charles Pachter in a telephone interview Wednesday.Theres a certain type of people that fits the milieu of the official art museums, he added. Toller wasnt one of those people.He knew Cranston. The Canada Day they spent together and among friends in 1978 was immortalized in Pachters painting Six Figures in a Landscape.Pachter describes Cranstons work as kind of like Disney on acid — like the Wicked Queen from Snow White.He was outlandish, outrageous, creative, funny, droll, Pachter remembered. He was a character. He was a true original.More of Cranstons work is sure to emerge with the eventual excavation of his cluttered residence in Mexico.Even when he was alive, it wasnt easy to maintain a reliable record of his work.As soon as he put his signature on a painting, it was out of his life. It was like it didnt exist, explained Talbot.Hed paint some masterpiece, something fabulous, a $30,000 to $40,000 painting, and he wouldnt even know where the damn thing was. ... This is a six-foot-by-six-foot painting that you knocked yourself out on for two months and you dont even know where it is? The level of dysfunction was spectacular, but its just the kind of guy he was.Cranstons apparently unstoppable work ethic, his seclusion, and his habitual disorganization may have contributed to hyperbolic estimates of his artistic output.And that, his friends say, is in its own way fitting.I have seen inaccurate figures printed that he did over 70,000 works of art, said Pachter with a laugh.No artist could do that many. Maybe 7,000, but 70,000? Its ridiculous.It is an exaggeration, he added. But in many ways, Tollers whole life was an exaggeration.— Follow @CP_Patch on Twitter ' ' '