Montreal Expos passion lives on - sort of

For the wrong reasons lately, the Montreal Expos have been in the spotlight. Our long departed franchise, now languishing in less than mediocrity in our southern neighbor's capital city, has been stricken with sadness. The decline of Gary Carter, arguably Montreal's best baseball name in its 36-year history, has thrust the team name back into the continent's baseball consciousness.

While The Kid battles on, the fans of Nos Amours continue to mourn the loss of their team. While skeptics will point to the laughable attendance towards the end of its tenure north of the border, there are literally dozens of factors and retorts to those arguments.

But out of the ashes of the death of professional baseball in Montreal, has risen a sort of slow, rising participation  in some sort of social movement. Thanks to the advent of Facebook, Expos fans the world over have virtually gathered online, at ExposNation. With approximately 129,000 likes on the page, ExposNation has essentially the same amount of followers as the current Washington Nationals Facebook page. Amazing. In fact, up until recently, ExposNation was actually still ahead of the Nationals page, as far as number of fans.

It's here that the memories, souvenirs, snapshots and stories continue to come to life. Every day, it seems at least one fan of the now extinct club is sharing/ranting/celebrating something about the team. Fans are also participating in decent numbers. This week alone, close to 7,000 fans either liked or commented on the page, compared to roughly 2,000 for the Nats page, for example.

Recently, we're even seeing the media types get involved. TVA Sports recently had former Expos ace Steve Rogers on air. They turned to ExposNation to get the word out. We're also seeing the odd spam attempt and other inappropriate posts, but the spirit of the page remains intact - Keep the memories alive, the fan base active and hope for the future eternal.

Page organizers are planning a summer 2012 MLB event, to rally the Expos faithful, so stay tuned for possibly one more rendition of Val-De-Ri, Val-De-Ra.

Visit www.facebook.com/ExposNation to like the page.

Matthew Ross is the host of Game Points with Matthew Ross, Tuesdays and Sundays on TSN 990 Radio. Follow @tsnmatthew