Baseball fans still hoping for the return of the major leagues to Montreal, as well as those feeling nostalgic for the great years of the Expos, will be well served in the coming months with two documentaries that will look back on the team’s past, with certain elements making bring painful memories to the surface.
Moreover, the trailer for one of the films, Our Loves – The saga of the Montreal Expos, a sequel to director Robbie Hart’s 2003 work premiering April 18, can be viewed on social media. The images are quite eloquent and allow us to see familiar faces again, such as those of the players, Gary Carter, Rusty Staub, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson and Vladimir Guerrero, among others, who have marked the history of the franchise. However, fans can also see individuals synonymous with less happy times such as former owner Jeffrey Loria.
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The trailer also shows images of the stadium imagined by Stephen Bronfman at Peel Basin. This is the first time that amateurs can see what the project would have looked like.
It will be interesting to see if the documentaries will discuss the Labatt Park project, a downtown stadium that never saw the light of day. The Expos initially planned to move their headquarters there in time for the 2002 season and the bill amounted to approximately $250 million. It will therefore be possible to have a clearer image of the infrastructure of approximately 36,000 seats that would have been located near the Bell Centre.
The premiere of Nos Amours – The saga of the Montreal Expos will be broadcast at the Cinéma Guzzo Marché Central in the presence of former players of the club. Among them will be Steve Rogers, Cliff Floyd, Rondell White and Darrin Fletcher, according to the ExposFest organization.
In addition to Hart’s film, Netflix will later offer a documentary focusing more specifically on the circumstances of the departure of the Expos, who moved to Washington after the 2004 campaign. Jean-François Poisson is responsible for the production of this film, the result of a partnership with the Montreal production company Attraction.