Montreal Express

National Lacrosse League (2001-2002)

Tombstone

Born: June 2001 – The Columbus Landsharks relocate to Montreal, Quebec
Suspended Operations (Folded): August 16, 2002

First Game: November 24, 2001 (W 32-17 @ Calgary Roughnecks)
Last Game: March 24, 2002 (L 14-6 @ Albany Attack)

Champions Cup Championships: None

Arena

Molson Centre
Opened: 1996

Branding

Team Colors:

Ownership

Owner: Brad Watters, Michael Holliday, Randy Gilles, Kevin Kimsa, et al.

Attendance

Officially, the Express finished 6th in 13-team National Lacrosse League in attendance in 2001-02 with announced attendance of nearly 8,000 per game. But team owner Brad Watters acknowledged in a post-season interview that the team aggressively inflated its figures.

“In truth, we sold fewer than 3,000 tickets per game,” Watters told the Canadian Press.¹

Tap (mobile) or mouse over chart for figures

Source: Canadian Press²

Thank you to long-time Fun While It Lasted contributor Hoffman Wolff for contributing this article.

Background

Deposited into the Molson Centre during the National Lacrosse League’s Canadian expansion spree of the early 2000s, the Montreal Express were a box-office dud that came and went in just one season.

After gaining a successful foothold in Canada with the popular Toronto Rock in the late 90s, the NLL added a team in Ottawa in 2001 and moved into Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal the following season. 31-year old Brad Watters, already the owner of the NLL’s Toronto Rock and Ottawa Rebel franchises and the Canadian Football League’s Ottawa Renegades, initially sought to acquire an expansion team for Montreal. Instead, he learned that the league’s struggling Columbus Landsharks franchise was available. Watters purchased and relocated the Landsharks in the spring of 2001, ultimately bringing eight former Columbus players onto the Express roster, including 2001 NLL Rookie-of-the-Year Tracey Kelusky.

While lacrosse is well-known in much of Canada, the sport has a very small presence in Quebec outside of its Aboriginal communities, making selling the game to potential fans and sponsors more of an uphill climb than in other Canadian markets. Additionally, the handful of lacrosse organizations in the province usually played the contact-free intercrosse and thus were not particularly interested in the Express’ rough-and-tumble version of the sport.³

Debut

The Express home opener attracted reportedly fewer than 4,000 spectators (despite an announced crowd of 7,600).⁴ Accustomed to deadly-serious, gimmick-free Montreal Canadiens games at the Molson Centre, some fans and media were flummoxed by the NLL’s American-style barrage of rock music, chattering announcers and glitzy dancers. Older fans who remembered the Montreal Quebecois and Quebec Caribous of the 1974-75 NLL may also have been surprised the amped-up new version of the game, from the 49 combined goals scored in Montreal’s season opener at Calgary to the sound of the sport, with the noisy hard floors of the 1970’s replaced by quieter artificial turf.

The francophone Montreal press panned the opening-night spectacle, writing that the Express “bombarded customers with endless rubbish”, “idiotic contests” and “imbecilic commentary” and that the team was “turning its back on sports fans who prefer the steak to the sizzle.”⁵ Disregarding the fact that the arena was named for a beer company, Montreal’s largest French-language daily, La Presse, priggishly declared that the hallowed Molson Centre was “not a bar in Oshawa [Ontario] where drunk guys yell at the top of their lungs until 3 a.m., nor is it a place for line-dancing with your thumbs in the loops of your jeans.”⁶

An element in the skepticism towards the Express was a uniquely Canadian one: the often-wary relationship between anglophone Ontario and francophone Quebec. Montrealers were not predisposed to giving the Toronto-based Watters and his staff a long leash, accusing the Express of “trying to sell lacrosse to Quebecers as though they were Ontarians.”⁷ Watters was painted with the stereotype of the pushy, know-it-all English Canadian who comes to town to make a quick buck but ignores Quebec’s cultural specificities, a caricature that quickly frays nerves in la belle province.

On The Carpet

While the francophone media was without a doubt needlessly obnoxious towards the club — it’s just a lacrosse team, guys — the Express didn’t help themselves by coming across as, well, a bunch of Anglos who simply parachuted in for games. The entire coaching staff and 21 of the team’s 22 players were from English Canada. The team held its training camp in Toronto. All five of its preseason games took place outside of Quebec.⁸ The team was sardonically referred to as the “guys from Brampton,” the Toronto suburb where the entire coaching staff and eight of the players came from.⁹ However, the criticism may not have been entirely fair. With only a paltry few lacrosse programs existing in the province, Quebec wasn’t exactly overflowing with francophone talent.

Backup goaltender Alain LaLumiere, a native Montrealer, was the Express’ lone nod to local talent. His late entry in mop-up time during Montreal’s home opener drew on November 30th drew a roar of approval from the crowd.¹⁰

The Express were perfectly adequate on the field, finishing the regular season at 8-8. Montreal remained in playoff contention until the final game of the season, a road date with the first place Albany Attack on March 25th, 2002. But a 14-6 loss at Albany brought the Express’ maiden voyage to an end.

Express Forward and team captain Tracy Kelusky earned 1st team NLL All-Pro honors at the conclusion of the season.

De-Railed

Immediately after the season, owner Brad Watters stated that he had no intention of operating the club in Montreal again and that he was looking to sell the team for $1.2 million U.S. He observed that “dealing in a bilingual market made our job that much harder”. As for the team’s lack of Francophone players, Watters said, “We looked but we couldn’t find any that were good enough. Maybe we should have [put French players in the lineup] but that’s not how I want to do business and that’s why we have an interest in getting out of that market.”¹¹

The NLL gave Watters until August 2002 try and find owners for the team, either in Montreal or elsewhere. His efforts came up short and the Express suspended operations permanently.