Montreal Sports

Sports

he most popular sport in Montreal is ice hockey. The city’s professional hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, are one of the Original Six teams of the National Hockey League (NHL), and boast an NHL-record 24 Stanley Cup championships. The New York Yankeesof Major League Baseball are the only other team in North American sports to have more championship titles, with 26 World Series titles, but the Canadiens have not won a Stanley cup since 1993.

Montreal also has a storied baseball history. The city was the home of the minor-league Montreal Royalsof the International League until 1960. In 1946, Jackie Robinson broke the baseball colour barrier with the Royals in an emotionally difficult year; Robinson was forever grateful for the local fans’ fervent support. Major League Baseball came to town in the form of the Montreal Expos in 1969. They played their games at Jarry Park until moving into Olympic Stadium in 1977. After 37 years in Montreal, the team relocated to Washington, D.C. in 2005 and re-branded themselves as the Washington Nationals.

The Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League (CFL) draw packed crowds at the small but picturesque Molson Stadium on the campus of McGill University for their regular-season games. Late season and playoff games are played at the much larger, enclosed Olympic Stadium, which also played host to the 2008 Grey Cup. The McGill Redmen, Concordia Stingers, and Université de MontréalCarabins play in the CIS university football league.

The Montreal Impact are the city’s USL First Division soccer team. They play at a soccer-specific stadium called Saputo Stadium. The Montreal games of the FIFA 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup were held at Olympic Stadium.^[117]

Montreal was formerly the site of a high-profile auto racing event each year: the Canadian Grand Prix ofFormula One (F1) racing. This race took place on the famous Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Île Notre-Dame. In 2009, the race was dropped from the Formula One calendar, to the chagrin of some fans.^[118], but Bernie Ecclestone and Canadian Grand Prix organizers have reported that the Canadian Grand Prix will return to the Formula 1 calendar in 2010. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve also hosted a round of the Champ Car World Series from 2002-2007, and currently is home to the NAPA Auto Parts 200, a NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

Uniprix Stadium, built in 1993 on the former site of Jarry Park, is used for the Rogers Cup men’s and women’s tennis tournaments. The men’s tournament is a Masters 1000 event on the ATP Tour, and the women’s tournament is a Premier tournament on the WTA Tour. The men’s and women’s tournaments alternate between Montreal and Toronto every year.

Montreal was the host of the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. The stadium alone cost $1.5 billion, with interest that figure ballooned to nearly $3 billion, and was only paid off in December 2006. Montreal also hosted the first ever World Outgames in the summer of 2006, attracting over 16,000 participants engaged in 35 sporting activities.