A year ago, I wrote about the sale of the Ottawa Lynx minor league team. Today, the Lynx are playing what's expected to be their final game in Ottawa (though no official statement has been made about the team's future.) After this, they're rumored to be headed down to Pennsylvania to start their new life as the "Lehigh Valley IronPigs", an minor league affiliate of the Phillies. It seems certain that the Lynx will follow in the funeral footsteps of ballclubs that once played in Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Edmonton, leaving the Toronto Blue Jays as Canada's only pro team above single-A ball.

As a Montrealer who spent some 10 years growing up in Ottawa, this is a sad day indeed: I've lost two of my home town baseball teams! However, with every door that closes, another one opens…

Toby commented on my blog post last year that the Can-Am League had an interest in placing teams in both Montreal and Ottawa. Indeed, the league's commissioner Miles Wolff remains hopeful that there is still enough interest in baseball in the nation's capital, and was circulating a petition at Lynx Stadium this weekend to gauge that interest. (Unfortunately, only a few hundred tickets had been sold prior to today's game, a rather negative indicator.) The league would like to assume the Lynx stadium lease, but there are several hurdles to overcome, says Wolff:

We think we can make it work, but we've got to know soon. The Lynx were simply going to hand the keys to us. We can't afford to re-outfit the whole stadium. We're not interested in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new equipment. I don't think city officials realize how crucial the time element is.

In addition, the Lynx still have two years left on a lease with the city and face a $2-million penalty for breaking it. They also have an $11-million lawsuit against the landlord for almost 2,000 parking spots lost to construction around the park, a loss that the team claims negatively impacted attendance.

While I sincerely hope that the Can-Am league can resurrect baseball in Ottawa and Montreal, I simply feel sad about this loss, especially since I never got the chance to see the Lynx (I moved away five years before the Lynx came to town.) My mom attended yesterday's game and really enjoyed it. Tickets for her and a friend cost a total of $10–5 rows up behind the plate! Parking was a mere $3. C'mon, Ottawa! What better family entertainment can you find for that price?

Whatever the outcome, the Lynx had a good run in Ottawa. They won the International Championship in 1995, just two years after their founding, and have a star-studded alumni, featuring such MLB greats as Ugueth Urbina, Matt Stairs, Jose Vidro, Orlando Cabrera, Javier Vazquez, Hayden Penn and more. They may have had a small fan base, but they did have some truly loyal fans, such as Doris Renaud, a 79-year-old grandmother who missed only two games in the Lynx' 15 years in Ottawa (one because of an Ottawa Senators playoff game, the other for a grandson's wedding.) No doubt, the team also influenced scores of young baseball players. One day, we just might hear a major league batting champ or Cy Young award winner fondly recall games at Lynx Stadium, where they watched their heroes and started developing their own dreams about playing ball in the majors.

For me, the loss of the Lynx has solidified my own dream of wanting to be a part of bringing a major league team to Vancouver one day. I know it sounds crazy, but we're not all hockey heads up here!

Long live the Lynx! Vive les Expos!!

This post was added on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm and is filed under The Dugout . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.