The Montreal Machine was the sole Canadian team in the 1991 - 1992 World League of American Football, a springtime developmental minor league set up by the National Football League. There were also three European teams and six U.S.-based teams.

The quality of play in this league was not as high as could have been anticipated based on the 1983 - 1985 United States Football League, which was largely regarded as a failure more on a business basis than due to a low quality of on-field play; many commentators at the time seemed to feel that the USFL proved that there were hundreds more professional-quality football players in North America than there were available slots for on NFL rosters. If this were in fact true, for the most part the WLAF failed to reflect it, and after two stumbling years, the Machine, and the entire WLAF, were put on "hiatus" by the NFL. After three years, the three European-based franchises (and three more) were reconstituted as NFL Europe; the North American teams were never heard of again.