Ottawa Baseball Stadium

[EdFromOttawa]

Can-Am Baseball league returning in 2015.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa...2015-1.2506570

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by EdFromOttawa

Can-Am Baseball league returning in 2015.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa...2015-1.2506570

We've been having a lot of trouble with Baseball over the last 10 years and considering that this is from a league we've seen before (and a step down from the Lynx), I'm doubtful this one will have greater success.

I would recommend we wait until 2018 (ORT opening) before we try our hand a, what is this, our 4th Baseball team?

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

We've been having a lot of trouble with Baseball over the last 10 years and considering that this is from a league we've seen before (and a step down from the Lynx), I'm doubtful this one will have greater success.

I would recommend we wait until 2018 (ORT opening) before we try our hand a, what is this, our 4th Baseball team?

4th if you count the Fat Cats who seemed outwardly to be making it work before their lease was terminated. As an amateur/semi-pro team they had a different business model which may have been working.

Where I am doubtful on this one is not so much that the Can-Am Rapidz failed before, but I'm concerned that there still isn't an "owner." At this point I believe the League is going to be running the team - I haven't seen anything otherwise. This is not reassuring. It even sounded a bit like they submitted the bid just to make sure they got one in, not really expecting to win the RFP. Not realizing that the AA group might screw up.

Honestly, I think when the city had the 2 proposals on the table (AA and Can-Am) they should have gone back to both groups and given them some more time (maybe 20-30 days) to offer a better deal. If the AA group came in with a renovation cost that was too high (which seems to be what happened), tell them that and ask them to come up with a revised price. You would think though that after a couple of years of negotiating they wouldn't have come in high. And the Can-Am league should have had to come back with some semblance of an ownership group. But that's just my 2 cents, which I know would get rounded down now that the penny has been eliminated.

[rocketphish]

Champions say Welcome to Parc Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park

Norman Provencher, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: March 12, 2015, Last Updated: March 12, 2015 12:31 PM EDT

Ottawa’s Can-Am league representatives, the Champions, announced Thursday that naming rights to the Ottawa baseball stadium on Coventry Road in the east end have been sold well-known accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thompson (RCGT).

The Quebec-based firm has more than 100 offices in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes.

The cost of the three-year naming rights deal was not released.

RCGT was known for decades as Raymond Chabot Martin Paré, with the acronym RCMP.

The firm lists a variety of specialties on its website including financial planning and insolvency.

The ball club recently announced a partnership deal with Montreal-based Sportscene Group, which operates sports pub Le Cage aux Sports and which operates concessions for other Can-Am teams as well as for the Major League Soccer team the Montreal Impact.

The partnership will see Sportscene invest $100,000 at the now Raymond Chabot Grant Thompson park to upgrade concession stands.

The company has also signed agreements with The Clocktower Brew Pub and Kichesippi Beer Company to bring their microbrews to the ballpark.

And Ottawa franchise Gabriel Pizza will be supplying pizza.

The Champions kick off their 2015 season at home May 22 versus the Sussex County Miners, another expansion team in the Can-Am league.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...-thornton-park

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Champions say Welcome to Parc Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park

Norman Provencher, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: March 12, 2015, Last Updated: March 12, 2015 12:31 PM EDT

Ottawa’s Can-Am league representatives, the Champions, announced Thursday that naming rights to the Ottawa baseball stadium on Coventry Road in the east end have been sold well-known accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thompson (RCGT).

The Quebec-based firm has more than 100 offices in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes.

The cost of the three-year naming rights deal was not released.

RCGT was known for decades as Raymond Chabot Martin Paré, with the acronym RCMP.

The firm lists a variety of specialties on its website including financial planning and insolvency.

The ball club recently announced a partnership deal with Montreal-based Sportscene Group, which operates sports pub Le Cage aux Sports and which operates concessions for other Can-Am teams as well as for the Major League Soccer team the Montreal Impact.

The partnership will see Sportscene invest $100,000 at the now Raymond Chabot Grant Thompson park to upgrade concession stands.

The company has also signed agreements with The Clocktower Brew Pub and Kichesippi Beer Company to bring their microbrews to the ballpark.

And Ottawa franchise Gabriel Pizza will be supplying pizza.

The Champions kick off their 2015 season at home May 22 versus the Sussex County Miners, another expansion team in the Can-Am league.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...-thornton-park

Well, they got the company name right in the article title anyway. Fail.

[rocketphish]

Transit changes won't trip up baseball

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Sun
First posted: Sunday, April 26, 2015 03:49 PM EDT | Updated: Sunday, April 26, 2015 04:16 PM EDT



The bigwig of Ottawa’s new baseball team doesn’t expect the Transitway shutdown in June to throw the club a sinking curveball.

David Gourlay, president of the Ottawa Champions, pointed out there will still be bus routes that serve Tremblay Rd. where fans can walk over the new pedestrian bridge that connects the Via Rail station with Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park.

“At this point in time, I don’t see any negative impact on our fans,” Gourlay said.

The city will close the eastern stretch of the Transitway on June 28 to begin the conversion to LRT. That means buses that normally use the Transitway will be diverted to Hwy. 417.

However, several routes that serve the Transitway station at Via will skip the station completely when the buses move to the highway.

For example, Routes 91, 94, 95 and express routes will bypass the train station. Route 96 will continue to serve the station and will stop near the entrance of the pedestrian bridge.

It will be that way for about three years — or almost three full baseball seasons — until the Confederation Line LRT begins operations in spring 2018.

The city didn’t construct the $12-million pedestrian bridge specifically to serve the baseball stadium, but it will help transit-riding fans get to games. The bridge was built largely to serve the Overbrook community when LRT starts running.

Gourlay has bought into the city’s mantra of short-term pain for long-term gain when it comes to transit service.

“That’s exactly my attitude on this. It’s totally worth going through this minimal interruption,” he said.

The Can-Am League team is less than a month away from taking the field. Opening day for the Champions at the city-owned stadium is May 22 when they play the Sussex County Miners.

Gourlay said a new video scoreboard will be installed in two weeks. La Cage Aux Sports is fitting up the concessions and a new barbecue area is being installed.

Gourlay wouldn’t say how many season tickets have been sold, but he noted that all nine refurbished suites and the party room are booked for the first game.

Ticket sales “are getting more and more brisk,” Gourlay said, and he expects them to pick up as the hockey season winds down.

A new sign will go on the stadium soon and players will begin arriving May 4 to prepare for the season.

“We’re right where we want to be and I’m pretty happy with it,” Gourlay said.

jon.willing@sunmedia.ca
Twitter: @JonathanWilling

http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/04/26/...ip-up-baseball

[J.OT13]

City ends struggling Ottawa Champions baseball team’s stadium lease

David Sali, OBJ
June 28, 2019

The City of Ottawa is renegotiating its lease deal with pro baseball’s Ottawa Champions after the club fell more than $400,000 behind in rent payments at the city-owned 10,000-seat stadium on Coventry Road.

In a memo to the city’s finance and economic development committee released Thursday, city staff said the club’s lease has been torn up and replaced with a “facility use agreement” that will see the Champions pay an hourly rate to rent the stadium just like any other tenant. According to the memo, the Champions asked the city to “consider a new arrangement” for operating the team after years of underperforming at the box office.

The Champions will now pay a commercial rate of $128.25 an hour to use the park, with a premium of $48.35 an hour tacked on for night games to cover lighting costs. The team will also pay the city $760 per game for extra staff support fees.

Under the new agreement, which must be approved by city council, the city expects to earn about $163,000 in revenues each year. The city will also reduce its maintenance standards for the stadium accordingly, bringing the park more in line with other municipal sports fields.

Champions owner Miles Wolff told OBJ the new deal, which will run through 2024, should save the club up to $300,000 over the course of a full season.

“With this lease, it certainly puts us on a much better financial footing,” he said, noting the club paid the city an average of about $8,000 a game under the previous lease, as opposed to about $2,500 under the new deal. “It’ll certainly make this a much more viable franchise.”

Under the old lease, which was signed in late 2013 and was expected to last for 10 seasons, the Champions paid a total of $358,000 a year to rent the facility. The city was also slated to receive 10 per cent of all gross concession revenues that exceeded $1.2 million per season, $1 for each car that parked in the stadium lot and 50 per cent of all net naming rights that surpassed $200,000.

But in Thursday’s memo, the city said the Champions’ revenue projections “are not being realized,” causing the team to fall behind in its rent payments. It blamed several factors, including the weather, a lack of resources to promote the club and poor access to public transit, a situation made worse by continued delays in the opening of the Confederation LRT line that services the nearby Ottawa train station.

“We were expecting the LRT to be ready last year,” Wolff said, adding the team has averaged only about 1,500 fans a game so far in 2019, thanks in part to “awful” weather in May. “There have been several things that we didn’t expect that came up, so here we are.”

Wolff said he’s hoping some hot, sunny summer days and the end of the school year will help boost the average attendance figure closer to 2,000 by season’s end.

“Once school is out, that’s when we really see an uptick,” he said. “July and August are always our best months.”

Wolff said he continues to seek new ownership for the team. When the Champions joined the Can-Am League in 2015, Wolff – who is also the league’s commissioner – agreed to own the franchise until Ottawa-based owners could be found.

“I never intended to own the club,” he said. “Hopefully, we can find (local buyers) sometime in the near future.”

Wolff said it didn’t help matters that the city has floated the idea of using the stadium and land around it for future affordable housing development. Many fans, he says, heard media reports about the proposal and assumed the stadium was destined for the wrecking ball.

“I just had a couple of fans come up to me last night saying, ‘Oh, this is the last year of the team,’” he said. “It’s tough to build fans if they think the team is gonna leave. In my mind, if we’re doing well, the city won’t tear down the ballpark. And if we’re not doing well, well then, in seven years or so, maybe they should. But it’s certainly nothing immediate.”

According to the city memo, the Champions have agreed to repay a total of $418,942 in outstanding rent to the city in several instalments. About $200,000 is slated to be repaid by Sept. 30, with the rest to be doled out in several payments from 2020 to 2023. Wolff said the first portion will be paid in July.

The city also said the new deal will allow it to explore “other revenue options” for the ballpark, such as hosting more special events. The report also said the parking lot could be rezoned to “broaden the scope of allowable uses and business opportunities.”

The finance and economic development committee will vote on the agreement at its next meeting on July 10.

https://obj.ca/article/city-ends-str...-stadium-lease

[J.OT13]

The Max Keeping Bridge opened in February 2015 and the Transitway closed April 2015. The Champions never had a chance.

Hopefully they are still around next year to benefit from the Confederation Line (assuming it's open by then). I'd like to see OSEG buy the team and replicate the Lansdowne Park model. With the eventual redevelopment of St-Laurent and maybe the Best Buy/Canadian Tire big box mall, a baseball team in Ottawa could be successful again. Maybe the Champions could upgrade to a Blue Jays or Expos (should they return) Farm Team.

[kwoldtimer]

$400G in arrears! Did they ever pay any rent?

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

$400G in arrears! Did they ever pay any rent?

Well, just doing the math, they should have paid a total of $1.8 million as of this year, plus the percentage of concessions. So, yes.

Not surprising that they are way behind this year. Even without the LRT issue, the weather has been absolutely horrible for baseball. And they lost one of their biggest crowds of the year when the Saturday game against the Cuban national team got rained out.

Hopefully they have at least some marketing budget to remind people that they are playing.

[rocketphish]

Ottawa Stadium's future hinges on more revenue opportunities to offset growing tax requirement

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: July 4, 2019



The future of Ottawa’s municipal baseball stadium could hinge on the city finding other money-making activities to offset growing operating costs for the aging one-sport facility.

Mayor Jim Watson said Wednesday his objective is to make sure the Ottawa Stadium operations break even for municipal taxpayers.

However, to get there, the city will have to get creative, especially since revenue from the most high-profile customer is tumbling.

The city ended a 10-year lease with the Ottawa Champions to give the baseball team a better shot at survival under a cheaper rental scheme. Instead of locking in long-term lease payments, the team will rent the stadium at hourly rates. Champions owner Miles Wolff said last week he intends to field the team for several years.

The deal keeps professional baseball in Ottawa, but it’s not an ideal financial game plan for city hall.

The costs to run the stadium have increased since city council brought back the Can-Am League to Ottawa.

The net operating cost of the stadium — that is, the amount of tax money required after revenues are deducted — was $494,123 in 2018. City council in 2013 approved a 10-year lease with the Ottawa Champions with an understanding the net operating cost would be $400,000.

The stadium’s gross operating costs in 2018 had a budget of $894,360. The Champions, the main tenant, provided the city with $363,000.

The new arrangement will have the Champions pay hourly rental rates adding up to a total of $162,844 in annual revenue for the city.

“Like most municipal recreation facilities, the stadium does not break even on recovering its operating costs with user fees,” according to Dan Chenier, the city’s general manager in charge of parks and recreation.

To save money, the city is reducing the enhanced maintenance standards for the ballpark. It’s also considering how it can use the parking lot to generate revenue through a rezoning process.

Coun. Allan Hubley was one of three councillors who voted against the lease deal in 2013. He doesn’t support spending more tax money on stadium operations and he believes the city should be examining the redevelopment potential of the stadium property.

The city has identified the stadium land as a possible development site for affordable housing one day.

“We knew at that time we could sell that property and not have to put more tax dollars into it,” Hubley said Wednesday, recalling the 2013 decision.

“Give council credit. They did make all the necessary investments to try to make it work, but it just hasn’t worked. It’s not really taken off as a concert venue, it’s not taken off as a baseball event. I don’t think for lack of effort by the owner, by any means. I think they’ve done everything they could to field something decent, but there’s only a few teams in that league. How many times do you want to see the same two teams play?”

The Can-Am League has six teams.

The 10,000-seat stadium, whose official name is Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park under a naming rights deal, was built in 1993.

Watson said he’s committed to trying to make professional baseball survive in Ottawa.

“I want baseball to succeed because we have a $17-million stadium that taxpayers invested in heavily many years ago and it’s a uni-purpose facility. It’s not a multi-purpose facility,” Watson said.

Watson said he was encouraged to see attendance increase for the Champions games on the Canada Day weekend.

The stadium deal needed to be changed for both sides, Watson said.

“Having an empty stadium does us no good and charging the fees that we were, (the owner) was never able to make a profit. I remain optimistic that we have a good team and we have a good manager and good owner that has deep roots in semi-pro baseball, but we need the fans to come out to show it.”

Watson said council isn’t at a point where it has to decide the future of the stadium property. He’s hoping the Champions will succeed as a business, possibly bolstered by a future LRT connection.

“My best advice to baseball fans in Ottawa is start showing up and supporting the Champions, and (to) the corporate community, start showing up and sponsoring the Champions so we can have a long-term future that’s viable,” Watson said.

jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ax-requirement

[J.OT13]

Diane Deans wanted to have a conversation about the new Champion's lease. The Mayor denied her that right. No surprise.

https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...50591152033793

[rocketphish]

A 'new low': Committee refuses councillor's call to ask questions on Ottawa stadium baseball deal

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: July 10, 2019

The powerful finance and economic development committee on Wednesday refused a councillor’s call to put the new Ottawa stadium deal on the table for discussion.

Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans, who’s not a member of the committee, asked that a staff memo detailing the new stadium agreement with the Ottawa Champions be added to the agenda. The memo was included in the agenda package only for information.

No one on the committee, chaired by Mayor Jim Watson, vocally supported Deans’s request, so she was denied. The committee’s members include chairs of other committees, the chair of the library board, the chair of the transit commission and the three deputy mayors.

After the meeting, Watson said staff “were designated to come back with a plan that was more reasonable in terms of cost, and people on (the committee) obviously agreed with that.”

However, Deans said she believes the council decision in 2013 to sign a 10-year lease agreement with the Champions didn’t give staff the authority to change the terms without coming back to council for approval.

Deans this term has been questioning the amount of authority being delegated to staff to make decisions without asking for council’s blessing.

“This is delegated authority running amok, plain and simple,” Deans said.

It’s a “new low” to see a committee block a non-member councillor from asking questions, she said.

“To me, it’s more than a courtesy, it’s a right of members of council,” Deans said.

The city cancelled the lease with the Ottawa Champions to give the Can-Am League baseball club a better chance at financial health. Instead of guaranteed revenue for the city under a lease, the city is allowing the club to rent the field for practices and games like any other group.

Deans said the new deal between the city and the Champions should push council to question the future of the stadium on Coventry Road.

The stadium property could be an attractive development site since it has footbridge access to the Tremblay LRT station and is near the Vanier Parkway ramps at Highway 417. The city has eyed the land for a possible affordable housing development in the future.

However, the Champions intend to play at the stadium for several more years.

“I think council needs to set a new vision and we need to talk about the future of that stadium and if that’s the direction that we want to go,” Deans said.

Deans said she intends to put council on notice that she’ll ask for a debate and vote at the Aug. 28 council meeting.

“You’ll get to hear the entire (list of) questions and some from my colleagues as well,” Deans said.

jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...-baseball-deal

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Diane Deans wanted to have a conversation about the new Champion's lease. The Mayor denied her that right. No surprise.

https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...50591152033793

I agree with him on this one, Diane Deans loves the sound of her own voice and is pretty much a bell end that doesn’t listen to presentations and then re-asks questions that were part of said presentations.

[J.OT13]

She's still an elected official. Watson has a knack to silence anyone who doesn't agree with him, be it level headed Leiper and McKenney or loud/angry Menard and Deans.

[rocketphish]

Is this game over for Ottawa's baseball stadium?
Current deal with Champions not in city's financial interests, says councillor

Kate Porter · CBC News
Posted: Sep 10, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 9 hours ago



An Ottawa city councillor is asking whether it might be time to call the game for Ottawa's baseball stadium.

"At what point do we say to the community, 'Do you want to keep funding this use here, even though very few people are attending that stadium, attending baseball games?'" Coun. Diane Deans asked.

"Or, is it time that we considered perhaps other uses for that property?"

Councillors on the finance and economic development committee will hear an update on the city-owned stadium on Coventry Road on Tuesday.

They'll also learn the latest on the agreement with the Ottawa Champions, the Can-Am League baseball team owned by Independent Baseball of Ottawa Inc.

City staff terminated the 10-year lease council had approved in 2014 after the Champions fell $418,942 behind on rent.

The Champions were put on a repayment plan and entered into an arrangement to rent the stadium by the hour for the duration of the 2019 season, which ended last week.

Average attendance at home games was 1,800 this season, according to the Can-Am League's website. The stadium has capacity for more than 10,000 fans.

The new arrangement meant $162,844 in revenue for the City of Ottawa, less than half of what it earned with the lease in place, but at least the club could keep operating and pay back the overdue rent, staff reasoned.

The Champions paid hourly commercial rental rates, but also received special permission to keep using office space, operating concessions and parking on game days, and retained naming rights on the stadium, currently named for accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton.

"What we have is a seasonal permit, and we've given them all the benefits of a long-term lease. It's not in the financial interests of the city," Deans said.

Deans takes issue with staff changing the terms without asking for council's approval, but was prevented from asking any questions at a July meeting.

Councillors received a memo from city staff responding to her concerns last week, but Deans said she still doesn't have the answers she was looking for.

The memo did underline that the Champions' seasonal permit was only to help them through their 2019 season, and can be reassessed each year.

The City of Ottawa has considered the stadium site on Coventry Road for a future affordable housing development, and a few councillors have wondered if it would be better to develop the land.

Ottawa Champions owner Miles Wolff was unavailable Monday to comment on the rental arrangement with the city, or the future of his team.

In July, a spokesperson told CBC News the team plans to remain in Ottawa until at least 2023.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...eans-1.5276609

[J.OT13]

I hope they can survive at least one more year. They were in a major disadvantage from the very beginning: the same year the Champions started playing, the Max Keeping Bridge opened and the Transitway closed, all before the start of their season. Two more seasons were lost because of the Confederation Line delay and now it opens a few weeks after their 2019 season ended. Give it one more year to see what kind of effect the Confederation Line would have on attendance.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Is this game over for Ottawa's baseball stadium?
Current deal with Champions not in city's financial interests, says councillor

Kate Porter · CBC News
Posted: Sep 10, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 9 hours ago



An Ottawa city councillor is asking whether it might be time to call the game for Ottawa's baseball stadium.

"At what point do we say to the community, 'Do you want to keep funding this use here, even though very few people are attending that stadium, attending baseball games?'" Coun. Diane Deans asked.

"Or, is it time that we considered perhaps other uses for that property?"

Councillors on the finance and economic development committee will hear an update on the city-owned stadium on Coventry Road on Tuesday.

They'll also learn the latest on the agreement with the Ottawa Champions, the Can-Am League baseball team owned by Independent Baseball of Ottawa Inc.

City staff terminated the 10-year lease council had approved in 2014 after the Champions fell $418,942 behind on rent.

The Champions were put on a repayment plan and entered into an arrangement to rent the stadium by the hour for the duration of the 2019 season, which ended last week.

Average attendance at home games was 1,800 this season, according to the Can-Am League's website. The stadium has capacity for more than 10,000 fans.

The new arrangement meant $162,844 in revenue for the City of Ottawa, less than half of what it earned with the lease in place, but at least the club could keep operating and pay back the overdue rent, staff reasoned.

The Champions paid hourly commercial rental rates, but also received special permission to keep using office space, operating concessions and parking on game days, and retained naming rights on the stadium, currently named for accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton.

"What we have is a seasonal permit, and we've given them all the benefits of a long-term lease. It's not in the financial interests of the city," Deans said.

Deans takes issue with staff changing the terms without asking for council's approval, but was prevented from asking any questions at a July meeting.

Councillors received a memo from city staff responding to her concerns last week, but Deans said she still doesn't have the answers she was looking for.

The memo did underline that the Champions' seasonal permit was only to help them through their 2019 season, and can be reassessed each year.

The City of Ottawa has considered the stadium site on Coventry Road for a future affordable housing development, and a few councillors have wondered if it would be better to develop the land.

Ottawa Champions owner Miles Wolff was unavailable Monday to comment on the rental arrangement with the city, or the future of his team.

In July, a spokesperson told CBC News the team plans to remain in Ottawa until at least 2023.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...eans-1.5276609

It would be a shame to see the City pull the plug on the stadium, especially just before the LRT opens. The Champions' business plan included rapid transit access, so it's no surprise that they have suffered during the 2-season delay.

Yes, it's too big for the Champions, but there is always a possibility of an Expos or even a Jays farm team locating here. Once the stadium is gone, it's gone. This is the kind of asset that makes Ottawa a better, more interesting place to live. Another set of condos doesn't do that.

Even though the team only gets 1800-2000 per game, that is for 50-some games a year, so it's still quite a few people using the facility. Not sure about how much more use it gets, but I know that it was used for the university championships last fall, and there is no reason that the City couldn't be attempting to attract more events, including national team games.

If redevelopment is the goal, why not start with the parking lots? Those could easily be developed and a parking structure included in the first phase.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by phil235

If redevelopment is the goal, why not start with the parking lots? Those could easily be developed and a parking structure included in the first phase.

I agree. Adopt a Lansdowne model for the stadium starting with the parking lots. Buy off the land occupied by the big box stores to the east (which the City short-shortsightedly sold for the big box stores years ago) and possibly the RCMP building and parking lot. We could eventually have continuous urban development from the Vanier Parkway to St-Laurent Boulevard.

[lrt's friend]

We will tear the stadium down one or two years before the return of the Montreal Expos and lose the possibility of double or triple A ball here in Ottawa. I guarantee there will be so much hype if the Expos return, that large crowds would also return here for a minor league team affiliate.