(Toronto) There was a time when we were much better than them, there, in Toronto.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
Our artists were better, our World Expos were better, our Expos were the only ones playing baseball in the whole country, and the hockey club won so many times it almost got boring by the end.
How times have changed.
This reality hit us like a Shea Weber double-check in the face during this weekend in Drake Town.
Arriving here on Friday, our downtown hotel was packed, as were all the restaurants around. The reason ? There were two, in fact: to our left, a little further, there were 45,000 people to watch the Blue Jays’ first game of the season in Toronto, in this Rogers Center which is nevertheless a version a little less ugly than our own big concrete bowl on avenue Pierre-De Coubertin.
A few blocks away, at the Scotiabank Arena, 19,800 people were present to watch an NBA basketball game between the Raptors and the Houston Rockets. Of course, the same arena was going to be just as full on Saturday night for the game between the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs.
For the slightly older (but not so old) Montrealer who knew the Expos and Sugar Ray against Duran at the Stadium and the rumors of the imminent arrival of an NFL club (a name had even been planned: the Olympics), this sports festival in the enemy city is enough to make people jealous.
Why them and not us? There are so many reasons, and it would take a book to list them all, but basically there’s obviously a lot of business money out there, and that’s what a city can afford three major league clubs, while another tries to get joint custody for the return of baseball, without success.
We will obviously have understood that there are worse things in life than that. But having it in the face, like that, it still hurts a little.