PEIThe World Series is here, and the Toronto Blue Jays are back on baseball’s biggest stage for the first time in more than 30 years. But for many longtime fans, the moment stirs memories of another beloved Canadian team: the late, great Montreal Expos.‘I’m rooting for them… but it’s not as deep as my first love’Thinh Nguyen · CBC News · Posted: Oct 24, 2025 12:34 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe best-of-seven World Series will kick off Friday at Rogers Centre in Toronto. The Jays host the first two games, as well as Games 6 and 7 if necessary. (Alex Lupul/CBC)The World Series is here, and the Toronto Blue Jays are back on baseball’s biggest stage for the first time in more than 30 years.But for many longtime fans, the moment stirs memories of another beloved Canadian team: the late, great Montreal Expos.The Jays face off against the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers at Rogers Centre starting at 9 p.m. AT Friday.And while some fans still carry a torch for Montreal’s lost franchise, many say they’ll still be tuning in and cheering for the Jays. Campbell Webster, owner of Timothy’s World Coffee in Charlottetown, is one of them.Campbell Webster says that even though his beloved Montreal Expos are gone, he can still appreciate and root for the Toronto Blue Jays. (Thinh Nguyen/CBC)More than two decades after the Expos left the city, Webster said the loss still feels fresh. But when people ask if he’ll be watching the Jays, his answer is yes.“Just because our beautiful marriage between fans and that team have ended, it doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate somebody else’s beautiful marriage,” Webster told CBC’s Island Morning.“If you’ve had 30, 40, years of loving a team, and then suddenly they vanish, you just don’t go down the street and gather another one. It is a bit like that. But I enjoy it. I’m rooting for them. I see the Canada context, but it’s not as deep as my first love.”For fellow Expos fan and retired CBC journalist Ian Petrie, the transition took time. When the team moved from Montreal to Washington, he said he felt no loyalty toward the new Nationals squad and even shared some common grudges Expos fans held against Toronto.“I kind of got over it then, and I have followed the Blue Jays closely, I have to admit, for the last four or five years,” Petrie said.What could have beenThe Montreal Expos were a dying franchise — pitiful payroll, low attendance, middling results on the field. But in 1994, a long period of “rebuilding” finally yielded results.The Expos led the National League East, six games ahead of the Atlanta Braves (a team that spent twice as much on player salaries).Attendance was up, and many thought the Expos were a lock for the World Series. Then a labour dispute brought it all to a screeching halt on Aug. 12, 1994.“What happened in 1994, I think will always be for a baseball fan… a huge disappointment. I mean, you had a collection of players that we’d gotten to know, and you’d watch them develop,” Petrie said.“People like Larry Walker and so on become superstars. And they had a wonderful outfield with [Marquis] Grissom and Moises Alou in left field. And you can feel the same way, to some extent, with the outfield that the Blue Jays have now created, you know, players that have kind of come into their own.”WATCH | Baseball strike halts best-ever Expos team in 1994:Baseball strike halts best-ever Expos team in 1994The 1994 Montreal Expos are the best team in baseball. But a strike ruins everything.The 1994 Expos are widely regarded as the best team the franchise ever fielded. Heading into the strike, they had a league-best record of 74-40, giving them a six-game lead in their division (the Blue Jays were third in theirs, with a 55-60 record).The 1994 strike was the eighth and most serious work stoppage in baseball history. It lasted until March 31, 1995, ending the 1994 season and delaying the start of the next. A total of 938 games were cancelled.The following season the Expos finished fifth in their division. Most of the team’s core players were traded to other teams in the three years following the strike.“You get unlucky in business sometimes. What happened to Montreal was it was just at the sweet spot, just before the period when you could make a lot of money in broadcasting,” Webster said.“Had they sustained another two or three years, maybe won a World Series, got a lot of fans. There’s a lot of other income streams that would have made it work, but it was just just the wrong time.”The team’s financial woes dragged on for another decade. Attendance continued to decline. On Oct. 3, 2004, the team played its final game as the Montreal Expos, losing to the New York Mets 8-1 at Shea Stadium in New York.The team began the 2005 season as the Washington Nationals.With files from Island Morning
Blue Jays’ return to World Series stirs memories of the Expos for some P.E.I. fans
