Ben Knight: Seeking Soccer in the Snow (SS)

[Daniel]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... occerblog/



Montreal!

After a hard, rewarding week’s work in Ottawa, I treated myself yesterday to a day off in Montreal.

Whilst there, I decided to amuse myself by seeking any trace of the global game of soccer in one of the world’s greatest hockey cities under a firm, white coat of early snow. The search did not go well.

I don’t want to claim that it’s easier to spot a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey in Schwartz’s delicatessen than to find any soccer shirt or logo in Montreal anywhere. But for this reporter, yesterday, that’s exactly how it turned out.

The Leaf fan was at the second table back from the cash register, downing what looked like a small smoked meat platter along about 11 in the morning. He was being comfortably tolerated, if not accepted, by the famously gruff wait staff of my favourite eating establishment on the planet. The Leafs were in town, after all, and subsequently lost.

Honour – and that one fan’s appetite – appear to have both been satisfied.

The only soccer shirt I saw all day was a bad, cheesy knock-off of a Brazil shirt in the window of a sporting goods stone on Rue Ste. Catherine.

Obviously, this is a ludicrously small sample. I know darned, dratted well, thank you very much, that soccer is a proud and passionate business in Montreal.

That’s why I made a point of exiting the Metro at Viau, trudging in thick snow through and around the maze of sports facilities that sit shivering in back of the Olympic Stadium, to eyeball for myself the one place in the entire city where soccer will soon matter the most: The new stadium.

It’s an interesting contrast. There’s a low, snowy hill behind the base of the Big Owe’s ridiculous tower. Face west, and you get the arse-end of Olympic Stadium – a fascinating piece of flawed, soaring architecture, but a horrendous place to have to try to watch anything.

Face east, and you see … Something lovely.

Even covered with snow, Stade Saputo is simple and graceful. Surrounded on all sides by strange, unique buildings, it is a refreshing, inviting pasture of simplicity itself.

Three grandstands, open at the Olympic Stadium end. Behind what will be the east goal, a small supporters section stands 20 rows high, and looks as though it will seat around 2,000. A much larger stand, build entirely of blue iron girders, runs along the south side, and will seat a further 7,000. The main grandstand, to the north, is smaller and not nearly finished – although all its seats are in, blue and black in the colours of the homestanding Montreal Impact.

There’s a lot of private-box action going on over there, but considerable construction remains to be done.

The puzzle, to me, has been why the Saputo family is going to all this private-money trouble to build a stadium that will only seat around 13,000 fans. Montreal is a very likely future MLS city, and it’s going to take 20,000 seats or more to make that go.

Perhaps the Saputos, drawing five-figure crowds and outgrowing the venerable, vulnerable Centre Claude Robillard, are content merely to build a comfy little gem of a soccer park right next to a Metro station and vastly more acreage of parking lots than a USL team will ever need.

Except – as you take in this park, and it’s location – it’s hard to believe anyone is going to all this trouble just to host the Puerto Rico Islanders and the Carolina RailHawks. The huge question, then: is this sweet little soccer park expandable?

Oh, yeah!

The fan stand behind the one goal is pretty insubstantial, truth be told. It could easily be swept aside and replaced by something significantly bigger. The two side stands appear to be what they are. Expansion would be – tricky.

But the real potential is at the west end. There is enough vacant land there – well within the construction fences, to build another stand … another big stand … heck, potentially a honking huge double-decker stand. It would tend to block the view of the Olympic Stadium.

Oh, well.

Snow or no, I could easily imagine watching soccer in this unlikely spot. That a comfortable, intimate stadium should arise, and have the full benefit of the Big Owe’s Metro connections and parking lots?

That’s a pretty cool idea.

Oh, yeah: leading into the Stade Saputo building site, there’s a short pedestrian tunnel.

Grafittied onto it, in white-paint scrawl, are the words “Bienvenue. Welcome to the Big O.” Makes me think the new soccer pitch will soon be happily called “The Little O.”

And as to the “Big Owe” money jokes that have haunted this hill since 1976? I suspect “Little Owe” will be entirely appropriate, as well.

Nice job, Montreal!

Onward!

[Sabre]

Little Owe will be appropriate?


Tell it to MLSE/Government of Canada's BMO Field; The same thing as Saputo, just about 4.5 times the price.

[Cashcleaner]

^ But unlike Stade Saputo, BMO Field also has seperate facilities for the Mens and Womens National Teams so we should take that into account when talking about costs. The CSA and FIFA made quite a few demands of the new facility in Toronto, but Montreal probably won't have the same obstacles.

[Sabre]

Still don't get how Stade Saputo is the "Little Owe"

[Daniel]

It's a joke (albeit not a very good one). Get over it.

[Sabre]

It's a joke (albeit not a very good one). Get over it.

Don't look at it like I got bent out of shape, the was due to the quality of the humour.

Don't worry be happy!