Bruce Dowbiggin
Ask Not Who Killed The Expos. It Was The Blue Jays
Watching thousands of Canadian fans stream into T-Mobile Stadium in Seattle to watch the Toronto Blue Jays play the Mariners this past weekend was a stirring sight. Canadians seemed to represent about 60 percent of the crowds. The baseball fans from across Canada’s West have made the Jays their team, stretching the Jays fandom from sea to sea to sea.
Sadly, the Jays could not make them happy, as the Mariners staged some improbable comebacks to take the series two games to one from the Jays. But it did little to stem the fans’ enthusiasm for the frustrating Blue Jays, who are battling Seattle for the final wildcard playoff spot in the American League.
For longtime MLB fans in Canada the excitement for Toronto is a throwback to the days when the Montreal Expos were “Canada’s team” from 1969 to the mid-90s. The extinct Expos were followed rabidly as they became the first Canadian team in MLB and then the first Canadian team to make the postseason.
Spurred by the brilliant Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Steve Rogers and Tim Wallach, the ‘Spos of that era captured hearts the way the Jays do now. The national broadcasts of their games were shown across the continent. In Maple Ridge B.C. young Larry Walker— a future Expo superstar and HOF selection— chose baseball as a result of the Expos’ influence.
So it seemed only natural that when the idea of Toronto getting an MLB club became a possibility in the mid-1970s that Expos would whole-heartedly push for Canada to double its MLB contingent. After all, two clubs would double the enthusiasm for the sport in Canada, spawning more Larry Walkers in the future.
Little did Montreal president/ GM John McHale know that his friendly support for Toronto would end up as the death knell for his Expos franchise in 2005. No one thought that when the Jays began play in the snow of Exhibition Stadium in 1977 that they’d pitilessly cut the economic throats of their cousins down the 401 Hwy.
Nothing much happened in the early years of the Expos/ Jays “rivalry”. The Expos were entering their first peak seasons fighting for the NL East title. Everyone in Canada wanted a piece of the story. In addition to CBC TV showing the games nationally, Montreal also developed as network of local radio stations across the country. We can remember listening to Dave Van Horne doing Expo games on an Oshawa, Ont., station, fighting the static to hear the outcomes. There were similar stations in Ottawa and Windsor, Ont., and a number of other smaller Canadian markets.
The Jays, meanwhile, aligned with CTV as the club was regularly pounded by its AL East opponents in the early years at the freezing Mistake By The Lake. But even as the team floundered on the field, the owners of the Jays— primarily Labatt Breweries— looked around MLB and noticed that no team was allowed to encroach of the broadcast territory of another club.
As the Jays went from weak sister to equal partner to dominant team on the field winning the 1992-93 World SXeries, their tone about letting Expo games generate income in their territory grew less than cordial. Labatt Breweries owned the biggest, most lucrative market in Canada. And only they should profit from it.
This exposed the fundamental weakness of the Montreal franchise. The Olympic Stadium was proving to be a cold, fan-unfriendly disaster. Hundreds of thousands of English speakers had left the province when the Parti Québecois took power. At the same time as initial owner Charles Bronfman was tiring of coming up short on the field and repeated labour stoppages, the Expos were threatened with a severe hit to their broadcast revenues.
Their friendly sharing of MLB in Canada with the Jays now appeared naïve. MLB said the Expos could control Quebec and the Maritimes, but it would have to stay out of southern Ontario. McHale could see the writing on the wall. Owner Bronfman appealed to then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn for relief, saying this ruling would “ghettoize” the team within Canada. His intent on buying the club in 1969 had been to “bring Quebec into the nation”. Instead, the team he’d encouraged to join MLB was freezing the Expos out of the large English speaking markets.
After hearing from the Jays, Kuhn allowed the Expos to show 15 TV games a season in Ontario. McHale and Bronfman knew this was inadequate. As the Jays started getting into the postseason in 1985 and the Expos sank in the NL the die was cast. Making it worse, the Canadian dollar began its plunge that ended with a 62-cent dollar versus the U.S.
The 1994 season, in which Montreal had the best record in MLB, was cancelled. Bronfman sold the club to a consortium of owners without Bronfman’s means. By 2000, attendance nosedived as the Expos dumped their great core of Walker, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou and John Wetteland. By the early 2000s, new American owner Jeffrey Loria was actively trying to sell the team to investors who’d move it to the U.S.
Mar 27, 2018; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Montreal Expos former players Steve Rogers (45) and Tim Raines (right) pose with Toronto Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin (55) before a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Toronto Blue Jays at Olympic Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports
By 2005, the Expos were sold to new owners in Washington who renamed the club the Washington Nationals. Loria, meanwhile, was allowed to buy the Florida Marlins franchise, which he ran into the ground much as he’d done to the Expos.
The Blue Jays, meanwhile swept in to capture the entire Canadian sports TV audience. They are today valued by Forbes magazine at a cool $2.1 billion. There was talk of transferring the Tampa Bay Rays to Montreal but that evaporated when local Florida politicians promised lawsuits. MLB is now talking about possibly returning to Montreal as an expansion club should they build a proper ball park.
Although who in Quebec has a billion to throw at a baseball stadium is unclear. And how they’d get past the Blue Jays monopoly on broadcast rights in Canada is also a huge question. Just remember, however, that you needn’t look far to see who had a large hand in killing the Expos.
It was the Toronto Blue Jays.
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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
The week after Grey Cup is always a good time to look in for our first serious analysis at how Canada’s NHL teams are doing. So let’s take a quick… WHOA… what’s happening here?
If the playoffs were to begin next week (we wish) then it would be a cold breakfast for teams in Elbows Up. Just two clubs—Winnipeg and Montreal— would even qualify for the postseason. And the Jets have just found out their star goalie Connor Hellybuyck is unlikely to play much before mid-January.
The two putative Canadian hopes for a first Stanley cup since 1993— Toronto and Edmonton— are sucking on vapour trails. After being raked 5-2 by Montreal, the Leafs have just a 24.9 percent chance of making the playoffs. Conor McDavid’s Oilers have a better percentage but their same old goaltending woes and a ticking clock on McDavid’s back.
Granted that, going into the weekend, no team in the East was more than four points out of the wild-card spot while all but three teams were within three points of a playoff spot in the West. But the Canadian teams are stuck behind some premium teams and need lotsa’ luck so they end up like Max Verstappen not Lance Stroll.
Maybe a Canadian men’s Olympic gold medal can reduce the sting of no Cup, no future for another season. But it won’t save the jobs of coaches in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver unlikely to survive also-ran status. Let’s take a close look at the not-so-magnificent seven starting west to east.
Vancouver: The Nucks have a sterling 4 percent chance of making the postseason as of this writing. In the powerful Western Conference that’s still an insult to a franchise that hasn’t recovered from the hasty 2013 firing of GM Mike Gillis—who won… let us us see… two Presidents Trophies and six Western Conference titles in a row. Since then? Uh, bagel.
It’s nice that Elias Petterson has come back from the morgue this season. But it will come down to goalie Thatcher Demko staying healthy and whether ownership wants to go full tank or just a quarter-tank for a draft pick. Hard to see Adam Foote surviving as coach.
Calgary: Speaking of tanking, everyone in Calgary wants the Flames to do a teardown for the top picks in the 2026 Draft. Everyone, except, for the Flames absentee owner Murray Edwards and his robo-spokesman Don Maloney. They want the five percent chance at a playoff spot and a mid-round first draft pick. The Flames missed the chance to restructure in 2023 when Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk departed. But again, denialism in the management suite tried to make it an even trade with Florida, sign huge new contracts and keep pushing. Bad decision.
Only question here is when does the purge begin and what can they get to help Dustin Wolf— signed for seven more years— in net?
Edmonton: We’ve written at length here and here about the McDavid saga. He and the management team halved the baby with a short-term deal to pretend he’s staying in the Chuck. Their healthy chance of making the playoffs (75.5 percent) says one thing. Their play in the putrid Pacific— they’re given up six-goals-plus five times in just 24 games— says another. But as long as McDavid and Leon Draisaitl stay healthy they might still finesse a ticket to a their third straight Finals ride.
But if they get near the trading deadline and the postseason is a mirage the noise to trade McDavid will be deafening. And the offers staggering for a capped-out team.
Winnipeg: Last year was supposed to be the Jets big year. Okay, that didn’t work out so well. The Jets kept their core together for another chance at finally making a serious playoff run. So it will all come down, as it has in the past, to the health and playoff juju of Hellybuyck. Their ticket out of the Central Division lies in beating powerful Colorado and Dallas and, if that happens, staying healthy.
The Jets would probably just as well their stars didn’t go get beat up in the Olympics, but that’s unlikely. There’s always been a karma about Winnipeg breaking the Canada Cup jinx. Still a long shot.
EAST
Toronto: So you’re saying Mitch Marner wasn’t the problem with the highly rated Maple Leafs never getting as far as the Conference Finals? They’re 3-5-2 in their last ten, their captain is still a sulky figure— only now his output doesn’t make it worthwhile. And the Toronto media is trying to do the players’ will to get coach Craig Berube fired for them. The same problems remain from years previous: dubious goaltending and a shallow talent pool on defence.
The biggest problem for the Leafs is their closing window for success. They’re old, have few tradeable assets in the system and have traded top picks away for short-term gains that never appeared. Expect fireworks after the Olympics if this crate doesn’t get moving. New MLSE boss Keith Pelley has no ties to the current administration and will sweep clean.
Ottawa: The Sens have managed to survive the loss of captain Brad Tkachuck to a broken finger. How? Ottawa have gotten goals from 17 different players which means they have balance. And so far they are above average 5-on-5. All good. They’ve also taken advantage of the mediocrity of the Leafs and other Eastern teams to stay afloat.
Their Achilles heel? Between the pipes. Both goalies have a save percentage under .875 and that ain’t going to cut it come spring. As always finances will limit their trades and manoeuvrability.
Montreal: The Habs were the fashionable pick before the season as the Canadian team most likely to get to the Cup they last won in 1993. Defenceman Laine Hutson is all that he promised last year. The dynamic top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky have cast back to the days of the Flying Frenchmen. Managing expectations in Montreal’s rabid hockey culture— where a misplaced apostrophe can cause chaos—means never taking anything for granted.
Now if only goaltender Jacob Dobes can keep up his play long enough for Sam Montembault to regain his form the Habs could be a thing in the spring. At this rate they might be the only thing.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
The Liberals’ first budget under Mark Carney— about nine months overdue— snuck through Parliament with Green Party leader-of-one Elizabeth “Margarita” May as the deciding vote. (All it took was a commitment to her insane climate targets.) A quick review of the Book of Revelations does not reveal this as a sign of the Apocalypse. But to Canadians who voted for a change in the spring it’s a rude reminder that no one is minding the store in Ottawa.
The Parliament Hill media has largely shelved discussion of Carney’s budget ‘guzintas (the PBO said there is a “less than 10 percent chance the government will keep its deficit-to-GDP ratio on a downward track through 2029-30… and Finance Canada has “changed its reporting of deficit financing, separating capital from operational spending.”) Translation: If Carney keeps on this track till 2030 the total GST collected from Canadians will not be enough to service the federal debt.
The chattering class is, however, full speed ahead on their Pierre Poilievre deathwatch. The leader of the CPC is one of their more anodyne figures to lead a party since Mackenzie King. His earnest kitchen-table schtick is about as dynamic as a cheese sandwich. Even when he famously defenestrated a blundering BC journalist in an apple orchard he never raised his voice. (What page am I taking from Trump’s book?”)
In the House of Commons, he has performed a monotone strafing of Liberal policy since becoming leader in 2023. He hasn’t elbowed aside a female NDP member. In the fine tradition of the House he does mock the Liberals front bench, throws water on their fevered policies and acts like a vice-principal of a small high school disciplining a student.
But in the judgment of today’s febered media— okay, the Liberals— he’s “rage-farming” or “rage-baiting” when pointing out that Canada’s debt is out of control, its real estate is a bubble waiting to burst and the relationship with the U.S. is flat lining. In fact he’s all rage, all the time, for their purposes. According to Carney’s bots, Poilievre stoops “to stirring and riling up ‘white-trash’ elements in society into hateful rhetoric against the prime minister. “
Team Carney has gloried in his travails since Donald Trump upended the spring election by cozying up to Carney. (Poilievre didn’t help himself taking pot shots at Trump who then dismissed Poilievre). CBC/ CTV/ Global savants who spit every time they mention Trump bizarrely were suddenly in enthusiastic approval of Orange Man Bad spanking PP for them.
The tone about his performance as opposition leader is vitriolic. “Pierre Poilievre’s rage-baiting and empty slogans aren’t what Canada needs”. His slogans (stolen by Carney during the election campaign), his by-election win in Alberta, his insistence on core issues— it drives the panelists on talk shows to fits for pique.
Which is funny when you think about it. Those with longer memories can recall the hijinx of the Liberals’ Rat Pack in the 1980s and 90s. Led by Sheila Copps (dubbed Tequila Sheila by Tory justice minister John Crosbie), Don Boudria and John Nunziata they were an early version of Polievere and Melissa Lantsman and the CPC front bench. Just more obnoxious.
Except the wind therapists were amused by them. Instead of rage monkeys they were the subjects of puckish CBC features. Copps could speak Italian with her (Hamilton) constituents and also had “perfect French,” said reporter Jason Moscovitz.” But she needles Mulroney in plain English,” he added, as Copps introduced a question for Brian Mulroney by comparing him to to Johnny Carson.
The irreverent Rats even produced their own T-shirts to wear in the House. “Other MPs say he’s sleazy, slimy, and a snake,” said Moscovitz, of Nunziata as he donned one of the T-shirts. So Nunziata used the same words in the House of Commons.”Sleazy, slimy Tory patronage!” he proclaimed on the floor of the House.
Laugh? We could have died. It was entertaining in the collegial debating club of the time. The sparring of the feisty Copps and her target John Crosbie was mint.
But now that the Liberals are entering a second decade of mismanaging the nation, their appetite for impertinence has disappeared. So the clever ripostes of Copps are now Poilievre “rage” farming and “rage baiting”. Some people have noticed the contrast: “Caucus unrest treated as a calamity when it involves the Conservatives, while Liberals get a pass” But the bubble-bound Canadian public only hears one slant.
In the U.S. there are hopeful signs of a bubble breakthrough. Hip TV host Bill Maher was forced to tell Woke comedian Patton Oswalt that his BlueSky world was strangling him. He enlightens an oblivious Oswalt on the UK grooming gangs. He also brought him up to reality when Oswalt said the Left never orders gender off of passports.
It’s not much, but it’s hopeful, at least in America. Here in Canada the information corridor is so thoroughly policed by the culture Stasi (using their dreaded Trump guns) that nothing can get through. Singing O Canada and not abusing the lyrics is considered a sacrilege on the Left. Daniel Smith is a Trumpist etc. Carney is intent on importing British hate speech convictions, not AI chips and nuclear energy.
If that isn’t enough of a bummer remember that Carney is just a stop-gap, a guy to rag the puck for a few years till the Liberals have groomed Justin’s eldest for the PMO. Where he can complete the Woking of traditional Canada that Grandpapa Pierre started in 1968.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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