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

Bruce Dowbiggin

www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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WOKE NBA Stars Seems Natural For CDN Advertisers. Why Won’t They Bite?

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Bruce Dowbiggin

WOKE NBA Stars Seems Natural For CDN Advertisers. Why Won’t They Bite?

Published on June 16, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

The wonderful people who brought you Elbows Up and Don’t Shop At Home Depot! are now on to Edmonton Oilers Bring Home The Cup. In response to no Canadian-based team winning the Stanley Cup since 1993 the corporate nostalgia folks are linking arms with Connor McDavid & Co in their struggle with the dastardly Florida Panthers. The Oil are now Canada’s team!

In one bit they were taking ice shavings from McDavid’s home rink in southern Ontario to mix with the frozen Zamboni water of Edmonton’s Rogers Place arena. Okay, they have eight players on the Oilers roster who aren’t Canadian (hello Leon Draisaitl), and the stars now killing it for the Panthers, Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, are from Ontario. But never mind. Like playing Mr. Dressup trivia with Mike Meyers it’s just too good an idea to waste.

The outcome of all this patriotic wind therapy will be determined Tuesday— or Thursday at the latest. But it will have achieved the desired goal of warming the cockles of all those Canadians who turtled in the election, flipping back to Mark Carney’s Liberals when the going got a little rough with Donald Trump. Resulting in a maximum four more years of Carney’s faculty lounge of dunces and Kamala Harris clones.

While the marketers were playing the Maple Syrup March over the Stanley Cup Final they missed an even better opportunity to marry Canadian patriotism with sport. We speak, of course, of the inevitable crowning of Canadian stars as champions of the NBA. In fact the entire progress of the postseason in the sneaker league has witnessed great Canadian results.

Not least of which: Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous Alexander winning the NBA MVP while leading his Oklahoma City Thunder to the brink of the NBA crown. For those distracted by Stu Skinner and Corey Perry, SGA is a revelation, If you missed him leading Canada back to the Olympics last year the wiry 26-year-old is a lithe, unstoppable chinook who routinely scores 30 points a game.

He has help from another Canadian, Montreal’s Lu Dort, a finalist for NBA defensive player of the year, who also led Canada to the Olympics. As unstoppable as SGA is, Dort is immovable. But that’s not all the Canadian content. In the Finals they are up against two more Canadian teammates from last year. Aurora Ont.’s Andrew Nembhard is the back-court catalyst for Tyrese Haliburton’s Indian Pacers, taking them to the Eastern title and within two wins of the NBA title. He’s assisted by another Canadian, Montreal’s Benedict Mathurin, the hero of the Game 3 win for the Pacers. They’re now household names.

The Canadian content didn’t end there, either. In the semifinals, the Thunder beat the Minnesota Timberwolves featuring SGA’s cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker , another alumnus of the CDN national team. At one point the two close friends were anything but friendly, shoving each other under the basket.

They had Canadian company in the postseason. In earlier rounds R.J. Barrett and the New York Knicks made it to the second round in the East, Jamal Murray’s Denver Nuggets fell to the Thunder in Round Two, while the Houston Rockets and Mississauga’s Dillon Brooks, a tenacious physical presence, lost to Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors . Meanwhile, Corey Joseph’s Orlando Magic lost in the first round to Boston.

But the Canadian content didn’t end there. The Toronto Raptors, NBA champs of 2019, are now spread throughout the league, affording nostalgic Canadian fans a rooting playoff interest in players such as Pascal Siakim, who’s pairing with Nembhard and Mathurin to push the upset-minded Pacers, shooting guard OG Anunoby teamed with small forward R.J. Barrett on the Knicks and point guard Fred Van Vliet of the Rockets. All harkened back to the Raptors’ greatest days.

But in the heat of Elbows Up marketing these great performances don’t seem to get a sniff from marketers looking to promote Canadian unity in these fractious days. While the sports networks give airtime to the stories in the Association. the general public and advertisers have little time or inclination to draw patriotic strength from these young men.

Before we completely condemn Canadian marketers it should be noted that the interest in the NBA in general is waning. The NBA has lost 75 percent of its TV audience since the Michael Jordan peak while many other sports — NFL, men’s & women’s college basketball, college football — have set record TV ratings. Yes, TV ratings in many fields have dropped since the 1990s. Still, it seems significant.

The problem for the NBA in a Time of Trump is its embrace of hard-left politics. Whether it’s LeBron James defending Chinese shoe manufacturers, the slavish devotion to #BLM even as its corruption is revealed and a maniacal obsession with Donald Trump (and embrace of Kamala Harris) the NBA has made its bed with radical political and cultural elements. It’s as if the Trump election and cultural shift never happened.

In this wilful blindness they are supported by their media partners whose own credibility is at an all-time low after carrying water for the Biden farce and Kamala’s erasure. Ironically, this is the same political crash car running Canadian politics at the moment. You’d think that would make the NBA— and its sister Women’s NBA—like catnip to the Canada Not For Sale crew.

So far the hockey quest is foremost in their minds. But perhaps when SGA holds the Larry O’Brien Trophy they might just achieve the symbiosis that the sport has always coveted.

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.

Bruce Dowbiggin

Canadians Thinks America Owes Them. Trump Has Other Ideas

Published on June 12, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

Breaking: It’s now being reported that in the 2024 U.S. election, zero Canadians voted for Donald Trump. In fact, zero Canadians voted for anyone on the ballot. They’re not allowed to. And yet rage monkeys in the Canadian media seem to have the idea that Canada is— and should be— an immediate priority of POTUS 47.

Here’s Globe & Mail/ CBC wind therapist Andrew Coyne about ten exits past normal on the idea of Donald Trump on Canadian soil. Okay, on Alberta soil. “We’re going to roll out the red carpet for the wannabe dictator of America at the very moment he is moving to suppress dissent with armed force?” (You mean like the Truckers Convoy?)

Cartoonist Michael DeAdder, who likely cries if you use improper pronouns, says “Hold my kombucha”. His latest etching has Trump asking a veteran what he did in the war. The witty retort is “Fought against people like you”. Get it? Trump murders six millions Jews. But The Hill keeps this guy working, and the laughs just keep on coming. Free speech!

The presumption is jaw-dropping. Even as Trump’s approval rating hits 53 percent, Canadians online were echoing Democrats’ fever dreams of forming a shadow government to take over from Trump via coup. This sense of impunity at a distance is why the Canadian government— along with other drive-by virtue signallers UK, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia— have imposed sanctions on two sitting members of the Israeli cabinet. They know it will rile Trump’s America.

For ordinary Canadians, Trump became a post-it note to justify giving Team Liberal another swing at ruining the nation. “We used to be such friends! He’s a tyrant.!” This just in: Love him or hate him Trump is employed by Americans to do their bidding. He’s not a sentimental buddy of Canada who’ll cut us some slack for old time’s sake. He has no remittance from Canada to please the Laurentian elites. If your defence is non-existent and your military gender-obsessed: you had it coming.

Are his policies jostling Canada? Absolutely. Read Art of the Deal. The 51st state jibe when Justin soiled himself was rude. But it worked on pliant Canadian liberals. Now the The Little Banker is disavowing the dissolute decade of Trudeau while employing Conservatives’ policies on defence spending, inter-provincial trade and border security. Hell, he’s naming longtime Tories to his personal staff.

In the end Carney knows this ain’t mock Parliament. That his dossier begins and ends with satisfying the beast to the south. None of this should be a surprise. Yet Canadians dozed when Trump made clear in his election campaign that the American economy is the greatest in the world. If you want to fish in that pond it’s not going to be for free. That means tariffs for a range of U.S. industries that couldn’t compete in a Biden world.

We can argue how well tariffs work, but Trump wants them to reduce taxes on the people who elected him. Not the Canadians who fly first class but pay economy. And who have pushed his approval ratings into the 50s, higher than ever before. (Likely to spike higher after the No Kings Riot season peters out.)

No wonder Canadians preferred the guy before Trump, the senile sock puppet whose government was run by anonymous figures using the auto-pen. Sleepy Joe let Canada slide into mediocrity and financial peril without any judgement. It was comfortable. Then The Donald had the nerve to expose the ditch Canada was in.

Canada, Trump pointed out, was delinquent on its defence, harbouring Chinese drug lords, printing money like Canadian Tire and its banks were involved in money laundering. That was the nice stuff. Try Organized fentanyl networks operating with impunity in the largest cities of the nation So dumping on Trump in salty cartoons allows Canada’s Mod Squad to ignore the real issues that should have been litigated in the April election.

We have written extensively about the ruse that was played on gormless Canadians in “U.S. Voters Smelled A Rat But Canadian Voters Bought The Cheese” We have catalogued Canada’s drug and money laundering disgrace in “Chinese Gangs Dominate Canada: Why Will Voters Give Liberals Another Term?” We’ve described the real-estate bubble economy created by Trudeau and sidekick Carney that threatens to crash the economy and ruin seniors’ pensions in

In the end, it is still la-la-la-la We Can’t Hear You. Trump-obsessed Boomers more concerned with the equity in their jumped-up bungalows gave the finger to the next generations and blamed it all on Orange Man Bad. In the monotone of Canadian political comment it all seemed so easy. Turn against Trump. Cash another dividend. Cheer on MSNBC and CNN bitch sessions.

The Family Compact don’t get it. Their Antifa heroes down south plan demos and “nonviolent” activity to crater the public resolve. In Canada that still works. But in the U.S. the Covid reverb is hitting the natural governing class of the nation. While they craft fine phrases about democracy the consumers remember them using a virus to stop society.

The appetite for Gavin Newsom blovaitors and Jen Psaki fart catchers is crashing in America. Riots may be coming in the U.S., but it won’t be like George Floyd and Covid and the pussy hats. At some point Canada’s docile classes better wake up, too. America owes them nothing. They need to earn the respect.