Montreal Junior will move

[Le Québécois]

According to RDS (french canadian version of TSN), the Montreal Junior Major Hockey team "Le Junior de Montréal" is on the verge of being sold to a group including ex NHLer Joel Bouchard along with JS Giguère, Ian Laperrière, Daniel Brière and Pierre-Karl Péladeau (Péladeau is the Président and CEO of Québécor).

Péladeau is also the one who met Gary Bettman with the Québec city mayor for the possible transfer of an existing NHL franchise to Québec city. He announced that Québécor is willing to invest several millions of dollars to bring an NHL team to Québec. But, in the mean time, he'll own a Junior team that will move from Montreal to a northern suburb (Boisbriand) and will play their games in a 3500 seats arena already own by Bouchard. Boisbriand is a booming suburb of Montreal. The name, the colors and the logos will all be announce in a few weeks.

[The_Admiral]

Major-junior just doesn't seem to work in Toronto and Montreal. I'm surprised teams co-exist with NHL counterparts out west. In the cases of the Hitmen and Oil Kings, it's probably because they're just cheap calendar-fillers owned by the Flames and Oilers, respectively, and so they have more wiggle room than some mom-and-pop operation in, say, Brampton. Or maybe westerners just really like junior hockey.

Anyway, "Montreal Juniors" was a cool team name, so I'm sad to see it go. I don't see why they couldn't keep it, since Verdun wasn't exactly Montreal proper either, but hey, it's their dime.

[JH42XCC]

Maybe they keep their old name and colors? After all, Boisbriand is in the Montreal area.

[pollux]

Maybe they keep their old name and colors? After all, Boisbriand is in the Montreal area.

No chance they'll keep the name. Would a team playing in Mississauga use the Toronto name?

[The_Admiral]

Conceivably. I mean, the one there is still calling itself St. Michael's despite not playing at St. Michael's anymore (which is silly, just plain old "Mississauga Majors" sounds pithier and better anyway). The difference between the O and the Q is in the footprints: you have so many teams right around Toronto (Mississauga, Brampton, Guelph, Barrie, kind of Oshawa, barely St. Catharines) that for one suburban team to call itself "Toronto" would be presumptuous and dumb, like "California Angels" writ small. Meanwhile, you have teams all over Quebec and the Maritimes without any sort of congestion around Montreal. They've tended to have only one team at a time in recent years, if they've had one at all. The Juniors themselves were in Verdun, which either is or isn't actually Montreal; I'm not 100% sure how that amalgamation thing works up there. A team in Boisbriand is Montreal's major-junior team just as much as the one in Verdun was or the ones downtown were (which is to say not much at all, given how all these teams keep failing).

[pollux]

There's a big difference between Verdun, which is on the Montreal island, and Boisbriand, approximately 30 minutes north of Montreal.

When we say that a team is in Montreal, it's basically the same as saying they're playing on the island of Montreal. Boisbriand is on the North Shore, past Laval. Naming it the Montreal Something definitely wouldn't fly.

In the Q, there was, at some point in time, a team in Laval, and three on the island of Montreal (Montreal, Verdun and Rosemont). You can throw in a team from Longueuil (South Shore) so it was basically the same as in Toronto now. That being said, I know they won't use the Montreal name, since they play 30 minutes North of Montreal.

[The_Admiral]

So Greater Montreal had five teams at the same time and lost them all. Maybe they should've moved this team to Labrador instead.

[FrankCostanza]

So Greater Montreal had five teams at the same time and lost them all. Maybe they should've moved this team to Labrador instead.

This team spent three years in St. John's before moving to Montréal. Then three years in Montréal (Verdun). At this pace in three years they will be on the move yet again. To Trois-Rivieres, Fredericton, or may back to St. John's if the Winnipeg Widgets eventually move their farm to closet to home (such as Thunder Bay). Your guess is as good as mine.

[JH42XCC]

Maybe they keep their old name and colors? After all, Boisbriand is in the Montreal area.

No chance they'll keep the name. Would a team playing in Mississauga use the Toronto name?

Highly unlikely. Same would go for a team playing in Oshawa.

Then again, a team in Gatineau wouldn't use the Ottawa name either (even though Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec are across the Ottawa River from each other).