I’ve always said toronto is not a place I’d like to live, but I’ll cheer for its sports teams–well, in baseball, anyway. Hockey as well, until this year’s lockout. Ottawa is the opposite. I love living here, but I’ll not be caught dead cheering for its hockey team–it still doesn’t have a baseball team. Now, though, it almost seems like Ottawa wouldn’t mind duplicating Toronto’s sports environment–complete with the fact playoff action’s a little sparse round these parts.
Take, again, the hockey situation. There’s the Senators, who’ve managed to make it to the Stanley Cup finals in 2008 and then, uh, not really a whole lot else since then. Compared to Toronto, who’s team–well, yeah, we’ll not go there. Just don’t. As far as baseball goes, Ottawa has never had an MLB team. The minor league team they did have packed up and moved around the same time the Montreal Expos stopped being the Montreal Expos. They want to bring another minor league team to Ottawa, but last I’d heard signs were still hazy–I was told to try again later. They still don’t have an MLB team and I’m not entirely sure this city could support one. They made two attempts at a football team–again, to compete in the same league as that in Toronto. They both imploded and they’re going for a third. And now, apparently, they want to give soccer and basketball a shot.
Ottawa is hardly a sports city. Even if at one point it could have been, I’m pretty sure after everything went bust at the start of the recession it probably can’t really aford to be now. But that doesn’t seem to be stopping the folks what have the money to burn from trying. Look, guys. You’re Ottawa, okay? You’re not Toronto. You can’t be Toronto–it just isn’t in you (see also: transit, efficiency of).
You just can’t do it. And that’s part of what makes the city two times awesome. Don’t you be going off and ruining it over some obsession with being the big city next door, okay? Take it from a guy who frequented there (not by choice). It’s not worth the screwed factor. Tell ya what, though. If you’re going to insist on being called the little toronto, give me a bit of time before you start taking on some of its other characteristics, okay? I’m gonna need to find me a place to move. I wonder if there’s space free in Victoria–who has absolutely no problem with not being Toronto. Now, talking it out of being Vancouver might be a small problem–but hey, there’s awesome in Vancouver. I can work with that.