News: Expos fans pack Rogers Centre for Jays game in effort to bring team back

DannyITR

DannyITR

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I would LOVE to see the Expos back and a new stadium built downtown. I admit I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.




http://bit.ly/12YAuJu

BY BENJAMIN SHINGLER, THE CANADIAN PRESS JULY 21, 2013
MONTREAL — A crew of Montreal baseball lovers appears willing to do just about anything to get their team back, even if it means driving to Toronto to watch the Blue Jays.

They weren’t necessarily cheering for the home team.

Organizers say about 1,000 Expos fans, hoping to attract the attention of major league baseball’s movers and shakers, packed into the outfield bleachers at the Rogers Centre on Saturday afternoon.

The group wore the defunct club’s traditional red, white and baby blue and held up signs promoting their cause.

“Our goal is to celebrate the history of the Expos and show that there is still a viable market for it,” said Matthew Ross, who runs the website Expos Nation and helped organize the trip.


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I would love to see the Expos back in MTL, more so than the Nordiques in Quebec City.

A nice 35,000 seat stadium in downtown Montreal. It would have been fantastic if the land around the Bell Centre would still be available instead of condos.

I am not a baseball fan but on lazy summer week nights I would go to the ballpark, chill with friends and have a beer. The Big-O was terrible for baseball.

It would be great if Montrealers invested in this, sort of like Packer fans in Green Bay or the FC Barcelona model.
 
I agree that it would be cool to see a baseball team back in Montreal. I travel quite a few times to San-Diego and usually stay right down the street from the Padres stadium and its def kind of cool to go and hang out there on a summer night.

Although this would be an awesome excuse to spend some more city money and funnel that into corrupt construction companies so I wouldnt be that surprised if it happened.
 
allroad said:
I would love to see the Expos back in MTL, more so than the Nordiques in Quebec City.

A nice 35,000 seat stadium in downtown Montreal. It would have been fantastic if the land around the Bell Centre would still be available instead of condos.

I am not a baseball fan but on lazy summer week nights I would go to the ballpark, chill with friends and have a beer. The Big-O was terrible for baseball.

It would be great if Montrealers invested in this, sort of like Packer fans in Green Bay or the FC Barcelona model.
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I totally agree, a 35,000 seat stadium would be perfect for down town and Montreal has quite the population to fill it. If they came back and became just as popular as the Habs, Boston Red Sox, Sask Roughriders it would be perfect.

Problem is right now our infrastructure is total shit. It won't be hard getting that hardcore Expo fan to show up but it's attracting new people. Does the new fan really want to deal with traffic, our pos public transit, the lack of parking you can find down town to actually watch a returning baseball team? Everybody knows that when they do come back, it's going to be with a horrible team for the first few years unless they pull some Colorado Avalanche shit.

I'm sure there are a ton of investors that have looked at Montreal for a MLB team, they know they can't make a strong profit in this city unless other things are fixed first.
 
this city has bigger priorities right now. Whomever builds the stadium will want massive provincial and govt handouts and you still need to get a team. I also highly doubt you can sell out each game or sell large numbers of corporate boxes. Look at MLB attendance and for most teams it's pretty pathetic. Sure the Yankees, redsox etc draw good crowds but the rest? Even the jays don't sell out anymore.. These people wanting the expos back are living a pipe dream, they need to move on.

On another note it appears that the 3 levels of govt will pay to have the f1 track/ facilities renovated. Much better investment


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Ca serait tellement débile. J'aimais tellement ca aller au Expos même dans un stade vide, laid et éloigner. Mais la, imaginer un stade en pleine centre ville, un stade neuf, techno ...

Mais bon .... on préfère rammener une 2ième équipe de hockey perdante dans la même province ...
 
There is a shitload of new condos built where the stadium could have been built (as in the pic above). There is no room left downtown.

The big-O was connected to the subway system and the "fans" couldn't be arsed to go to the games. A downtown stadium wouldn't work either. Espacially an open one. It would be fine in July, but deserted in April and May, and eventually in October.

Forget it. It was fun while it lasted, but it is over now. Move on.
 
I remember going to the last couple of games, it was dirt cheap and the stadium was still empty. There's just not enough fans in Montréal

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Gregster said:
this city has bigger priorities right now. Whomever builds the stadium will want massive provincial and govt handouts and you still need to get a team. I also highly doubt you can sell out each game or sell large numbers of corporate boxes. Look at MLB attendance and for most teams it's pretty pathetic. Sure the Yankees, redsox etc draw good crowds but the rest? Even the jays don't sell out anymore.. These people wanting the expos back are living a pipe dream, they need to move on.

On another note it appears that the 3 levels of govt will pay to have the f1 track/ facilities renovated. Much better investment


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Being a F1 fan it is important for Montreal to retain the GP however they need to invest in the infrastructures because they are just terrible.

As far as the Expos and baseball, Montreal will never be as important as Boston, NY and other Midwest cities however if there was investment on the part of private industry it could work. There are many smaller markets in the US and they have 3 major league sports. Take cities like Cleveland, St-Louis, Detroit, Kansas City, etc... nowhere near the population of the greater Montreal area however they have professional teams because of private investments.

When one thinks of all the wasted public money to keep the Olympic Stadium open. It should have been torn down in the 80's, we would have saved billions and would be better off. We probably would still have the Expos in Montreal.
 
Big Pat said:
There is a shitload of new condos built where the stadium could have been built (as in the pic above). There is no room left downtown.

The big-O was connected to the subway system and the "fans" couldn't be arsed to go to the games. A downtown stadium wouldn't work either. Espacially an open one. It would be fine in July, but deserted in April and May, and eventually in October.

Forget it. It was fun while it lasted, but it is over now. Move on.
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Yep and from what i remember they were giving away free parking if you had tickets. 1$ hot dog nights and 4$ beer. I remember going just to get crushed. After the first few innings you could make your way down to better seats.

3 things killed the Expos


1. MLB in general never really recovered from the 1994 Strike/ lockout. The conspiracy theories are still rampant about that one. As the Blue Jays had won 2 consecutive World Series titles being a Canadian Team. Followed by the Expos perhaps. You had the many sport critics still saying to this day that montreal would have won against the Yankees. After 94 we lost all our star players and pretty much became a AAA team after that.

2. The move to the big-o was never a popular one with players, fans and the critics. It was was never designed as a ball park. The damn thing was even finished when they moved in. Had a new Jarry Stadium been built they might still be here.

3. Brochu selling everyone and everything followed by Loria


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I attended many games their last season and was there for their last game it was sad. The stadium was the fullest i had seen it in years. People took their move hard yet many who complained never attended regular games. I chilled with jamie carroll after their last match ended and he explained that players themselves were taking the move pretty hard as they liked montreal. As much as i love baseball its not a popular sport here and i sadly doubt we will have a team again.
 
je m'ennuis tellement des premiers mois du printemps avec les parties des expos a la télé commenté par roger brulotte et son collègue avec mon pere et moi qui regardions ça ensembles ouff que de nostalgie
 
meme chose ici, je m'ennuis des Expos solidement.

L'ambiance était vraiment plaisante malgré le stade olympique, c'était abordable, tu pouvais amener ta glacière sans te faire écœurer.
 
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