[artvandelay]

A more pessimistic viewpoint:

It’s not nice to tease Expo fans
By Wayne Scanlan, Postmedia NewsJuly 8, 2011

Now that the Jets have returned to their rightful home in Winnipeg, it’s tempting to believe the sports universe is unfolding as it should.

With Winnipeg back in the NHL and visions of Teemu Selanne’s 76-goal rookie season dancing in our heads, who doesn’t daydream about the Battle of Quebec rejoined, as the Nordiques are reborn in a new Colisee, and some reincarnation of the Stastny line wreaks havoc with the storied Montreal Canadiens?

The righteous realignment doesn’t stop there, of course. The wheels are already turning on the Ottawa Rough Riders’ return to the CFL (one of these years), in a rebuilt Lansdowne Park. As bad as the Riders were in the mid-1990s, and as regrettable as was the short-lived Renegades era, the CFL is a better place with a team in the nation’s capital. At their worst, with the south side stands wasting away from neglect, the canal-side Ottawa location was one of the prettiest in the league.

Why, even the poor old Carleton Ravens are getting their Canadian Interuniversity Sport football team back, likely by 2013.

All of these nostalgic relaunches have sports fans of the 1980s and ’90s thinking big, but still too sensitive, too wary to put a name to our true thoughts, knowing it’s way too soon to dream the impossible dream. That is, until Friday morning, when the helpful folks at the Conference Board of Canada did it for us.

“Montreal has the market to support Major League Baseball,” notes the conference board in its latest sports business missive.

NOOOOooooooooo!!!

Please don’t go there.

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