Let's talk about choosing the right time: Netflix released a documentary about the Montreal Exposé the same week as Toronto Blue Jays are going to the World SeriesThis means that the excitement around baseball is at its peak here in Canada.
But talk about bad timing: The Montreal Expos were poised to host their first (and, as it turns out, only) World Series championship back in 1994, but a players' strike brought that season to a premature end in August. The first-place Expos were never able to raise their pennant, and the team left town just over a decade later.
As the name suggests, Who killed the Montreal Exhibition? It's akin to a true-crime documentary, focusing almost entirely on the business dealings that ultimately led to his eventual becoming Washington champion in 2005. It's clearly modeled after the successful 2020 basketball documentary. Last dancewith a story about the head office at war with its own team. Even the tense, cinematic music and the way the timeline moves through the years is reminiscent of Last dance.
But what Last dance had, and Who killed the Montreal Exhibition? no, it's Michael Jordan. There's a distinct lack of on-field drama here: baseball exists only as a metaphor for front office failures; Every time an Expos player threw a popup or crashed into the outfield wall, it dutifully played out as a punchline to illustrate how the owners dropped the ball, too.
While the title Who killed the Montreal Exhibition? offers a detective-style answer, although, as expected, it is much more complicated. Director Jean-Francois Poisson a variety of explanations are raised, each with some degree of blame: a crumbling Olympic stadium and lack of provincial support for a new field, a weak Canadian dollar, a series of mismanagement at head office and the inevitable pull of capitalism. Former Executive Vice President David Samson is the most accessible villain (it's very fitting that he doesn't know how to properly use the phrase “my fault”). However, it is difficult to disagree with him when he claims that he shares partial, but not complete, blame for the death of the team.
The film is at its best when it focuses on emotion rather than searching for answers. The fact that this documentary was made at all highlights that there is still a lot of love for the exhibitions and anger over their demise. It's amazing for Canadian baseball fans (and sports fans – I love my wife!) to witness the Blue Jays' World Series triumph in 2025; It’s just a pity that we haven’t been able to do this with exhibitions and probably never will.
