MontrealAlouettes.com
MONTREAL – Over 80,000 fans are expected to pack Olympic Stadium this weekend when Major League Baseball returns to Montreal with a pair of pre-season games for the first time since the Expos left town in 2004. And with nostalgia at an all-time high for the city’s original boys of summer, we decided to pull out our pinwheel caps and put on our (Pete) rose-coloured glassed to take a look back at the intertwining histories of Nos Amours and Nos Z’Oiseaux in Montreal.
So grab your peanuts and Cracker Jacks — or make that an Oh Henry — because here are our Top 5 Expos-Alouettes connections that you might not have been aware of:
1. Home Sweet Home
Originally home to the 1976 Olympics, the house that Roger Taillibert built would eventually house both the Expos and the Alouettes following the conclusion of Canada’s only-ever Summer Games. The ’Spos and Als shared the facilities between 1977 to 1986, and briefly again between 1996 and 1997 before the reborn Alouettes made the move to downtown Percival Molson Memorial Stadium. And despite playing in different leagues, their permanent offices and locker rooms in the same building always ensured that Montreal’s professional baseball and football teams were never more than a Vladdy right-field toss away from each other over the 12 years that they shared the Big O.
2. The Voice
Before he was ever calling the likes of AC, Cahoooon, or J-Rich as the official French-language voice of the Alouettes on RDS from 2000 until 2013, broadcaster Denis Casavant was calling The Kid, The Rock, The Hawk and company as the official voice of the Expos from 1986 to 2001 on CKAC and RDS.
3. Honour Roll
The legendary 1994 Expos team that never was will be honoured via a variety of events across the city this weekend, including prior to the start of Saturday’s Jays-Mets game. But did you know that the 1981 edition of the Expos, who came within a pitch of the franchise’s first-ever World Series appearance, were honoured pre-game on the field at a 2012 Alouettes home game?
READ: ALOUETTES HONOUR THE 1981 EXPOS »
Warren Cromartie, Tim Raines, Wallace Johnson, Ellis Valentine, Larry Parish, Bryn Smith, Stan Bahnsen, Bill Gullickson, Rodney Scott, Rowland Office, Bill Lee and Hall-of-Famer Andre Dawson were all in attendance that night to represent the team who gave new meaning to Blue Monday, unveiling an autographed commemorative plaque at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium before the Alouettes took on the Blue Bombers in pre-season action.
4. Family Ties
How cool is this one? Current Alouettes linebacker Winston Venable is the son of former Expos outfielder Max Venable, who batted 0.239 in 38 games with Montreal in 1984. Although he only spent a single season in La Belle Province during his playing days, hawk-eyed Montreal sports fans could have spotted him in the stands watching the younger Venable at Alouettes games in 2013.
5. Difficult Decade
Coincidence, or the start of something more? When the Alouettes ceased operations following the 1986 season, it took ten years before the CFL returned to Montreal in 1996 following the relocation of the American-expansion Baltimore Stallions. Now, ten years after the Expos left for Washington, this time it’s Major League Baseball returning to Montreal — albeit briefly — with a pair of pre-season games at Olympic Stadium.
