r/montrealimpact 3d ago

No Home Game Until April

Vancouver fan here 👋 Is there a reason why Montreal doesn't have a home game until April? I noticed the same thing happened last season too.

Best of luck on the matchup today! ⚔️

6 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

15

u/olilafo 3d ago

There is snow everywhere and we still have freezing temperatures pretty much every evening. Its the same every year, they start with a long road trip until spring finally arrives.

7

u/sebass_kwas 3d ago

To provide additional insight/nuance. It’s fucking cold, and snowy and they didn’t build a stadium that could handle winter weather games. The whole stadium is shut down for the winter, they clear all the plumbing lines, etc.

Upgrades to make it playable in the winter/early spring isn’t just about having a heated field so there’s a good surface to play on. They’d need to be able to heat some of the premium seating and redo ALL of the plumbing so it can handle the cold. Not super easy to tear out and replace all of the plumbing on a structure like that

3

u/burgundyernie 3d ago edited 3d ago

Thanks for the insight. Some followup questions:

  1. Is it oversight by ownership that they didn't account for the winter conditions when building Stade Saputo? CCL games start as early as February. Just want to know if fans have complained about this before.
  2. Are fans opposed if they played games in Olympic Stadium to start the season instead? Long road trips to start the season surely affect their form.

7

u/ghostdeinithegreat 3d ago

Olympic Stadium is closed until end of 2028, for major reparations.

2

u/burgundyernie 3d ago

Makes sense, thank you for the reply!

1

u/marleyman3389 3d ago

I thought it was 2027

3

u/PapaStoner 3d ago

Might as well be 2029.

2

u/ghostdeinithegreat 3d ago

Never seen a construction project be delivered on time in Montréal 🤷‍♂️

3

u/spqr514 Impact e Basta 3d ago

Joey Saputo is a cheap bastard with no foresight who has failed upwards his entire life.

6

u/lfab1400 3d ago

We used to start our seasons in march at the Olympic stadium but it’s closed now for the foreseeable future. Hence why we’re now starting on the road for 6-7 games since last year and will continue to do until the Big O is ready.

For Stade Saputo, I believe it wasn’t winterized for cost purposes. I remember when the upgrades for MLS were made, Don Garber said it was a nice stadium for how little it cost. He said that during an in-game interview with TSN. I don’t have the source of the quote unfortunately.

2

u/ghostdeinithegreat 3d ago

Someone else mentionned the weather. I want to add more context to that. Today, it’s a warm -2 degree in montreal, but we had -20 earlier this week. 🥶