FLUSHING, NY -OCTOBER 3: A detail view of a Montreal Expos patch showing their logo during the game between the New York Mets and Montreal Expos at Shea Stadium on October 3, 2004 in Flushing, New York. This was the final game ever for the Montreal Expos franchise. The Mets defeated the Expos 8-1. (Photo by Rich Pilling/MLB via Getty Images)
MLB via Getty Images
Friday is a tough day for baseball fans in Montreal.
It marks the sixth anniversary of the Washington Nationals winning the only World Series title in franchise history. Also on Friday night, the Toronto Blue Jays host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6 of the World Series at Rogers Centre with the opportunity to win their first championship since 1993.
The Nationals began playing in 1969 as the Montreal Expos before relocating to Washington for the start of the 2005 season. That left the Blue Jays, who entered MLB as an expansion franchise, as the only Canadian team in MLB.
The Expos never made it to the World Series during their 36-season existence, and their best opportunities came during strike-interrupted seasons 1981 and 1994. The 1994 season was excruciating, as the Expos had the best record in baseball and were favored to win the World Series. However, the strike in August eventually forced the cancellation of the season.
A sadness that has lingered with Montreal fans since the franchise played its final home game at Olympic Stadium in 2004. Friday only exacerbates those feelings with memories of the Nationals’ victory over the Houston Astros in the Fall Classic and the Blue Jays in position to win it all.
Two decades later, the heartbreak remains.
The pain of former Expos players, staff, team employees, and fans is evident throughout Netflix’s recently released documentary Who Killed the Montreal Expos? Added to the pain is the frustration that still haunts the city, which is who is to blame for the loss of the Expos.
The documentary examines the controversies, setbacks, and missteps that led to Major League Baseball acquiring the team and ultimately relocating it to Washington.
Among those interviewed are Hall of Famers Pedro Martinez, Larry Walker, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and longtime Expos manager Felipe Alou. Jeff Blair and Serge Touchette, who were beat writers at Montreal newspapers, add much insight. Even Jean Simon-Bibeau, the man inside the costume of the Expos’ beloved Youppi mascot, gives his thoughts.
Yet two main characters in the documentary are Claude Brochu and David Samson.
Brochu led a consortium of local investors who bought the Expos from founding owner Charles Bronfman in 1991. However, the ownership group was unable to gain funding to build a new stadium in downtown Montreal to replace the crumbling Olympic Stadium. Brochu also ordered the selloff of many of the Expos’ top stars as soon as the strike ended in 1995 to prevent the team from going bankrupt.
Samson’s stepfather, Jeffrey Loria, bought the team in 1999. Loria and Samson also couldn’t get the stadium built, and Expos fans and Montreal media suspected the duo’s main objective was to relocate the franchise. Instead, Loria sold the team to MLB in 2002 in an unprecedented move and then purchased the Miami Marlins.
Samson says in the documentary that baseball will never work in Montreal. Almost everyone else interviewed says the opposite.
So, who killed baseball in Montreal? The answer is so complex.
Not even a 91-minute documentary, well-sourced and well-researched, can provide the answer.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnperrotto/2025/10/31/netflix-documentary-examines-demise-of-the-montreal-expos/
