Exploring the Historic Jarry Park Stadium Site

The old Montreal Expos franchise is synonymous with Olympic Stadium, but older fans will recall the team didn’t solely call that spaceship-looking ballpark home.

Rather, in the early years of their existence, the Expos played just over 5 miles away at Jarry Park Stadium. The facility hosted the Expos from 1969 to 1976, but no longer stands today — at least not in its original configuration. After the Expos moved out, plans were soon afoot to convert the stadium into a tennis venue. That work began in 1980, and since then, the venue (now called IGA Stadium) has hosted the National Bank Open and several other pro and amateur tennis tournaments.

I recently found myself in Montreal with a little time to kill, and knew exactly how I’d spend it. Having been to Olympic Stadium on many occasions, including seeing the Blue Jays play Spring Training games there in 2017 and 2018, it was time to finally visit IGA Stadium to explore where Jarry Park Stadium once stood.

I found the parking situation around IGA Stadium challenging, to put it mildly. Most of the parking spots were reserved for permit holders, and French-only signage made me uncertain as to whether street parking was available or not. Undeterred, I did the only logical thing I could do: I parked illegally and hoped I wouldn’t get a ticket.

My primary goal for this visit, other than general exploring, was to see if there was a plaque that recognized Jarry Park Stadium’s location. I’d read various accounts online about the existence of such a plaque — some said there was a plaque, and others said there wasn’t. I was determined to find it if it were there. To give you an idea of how the area looks, here’s an overhead look at the facility with a little help from Google Earth Studio:

I set out from my car with my fingers crossed that Montreal’s parking enforcement team was at lunch, and a few minutes later, found myself in front of the facility’s main staff entrance:

As the stadium has office space that houses Tennis Canada, there were lots of people coming and going. Instead of entering, I continued down the long side of the building. As you can see below, the area was fairly quiet:

(Although, soon after I took this picture, a group of people on a golf cart raced past me and humorously zig-zagged in and out of the light posts before disappearing around the corner.)

At first glance, all of the gates to the premises were closed. This was a bummer, because I really wanted to get inside for a look around. Fortunately, there was some maintenance work going on, and that meant that construction workers were coming and going through an open gate at the far end of the building. Hmmm.

Do it for the story, I always say … so I walked with purpose through the gate, made a quick right, and found myself standing in a plaza that overlooked this tennis court:

As I continued to get my bearings, I realized that this was the complex’s “secondary” court. There’s a main court for, I suppose, the biggest matches. Then there’s this secondary one with a smaller seating bowl. And, finally, there are several other courts around the complex for perhaps lesser matches or warmups. No one seemed to take offense at me looking around. In addition to the work crews, there were some Tennis Canada staffers having their lunch at some picnic tables nearby, as well as some tennis instructors who seemed to be preparing for a clinic.

The best way to blend into one’s surroundings is in a crowd, so I got a little more confident and moved to this vantage point in line with the net:

I spent a few minutes taking in the scene from here. I’d never previously been to a tennis stadium of this magnitude, so it was fun to look around and get a sense of the facility’s layout. When I turned to continue my exploration, my eyes darted to a bright color at the base of a gate behind me:

If you’ve followed my travel adventures for even a short period of time, you know that I love doing an official “Walkaround” before I enter a ballpark. I’ve written about this endeavor on numerous occasions, particularly where finding baseballs is concerned. I’d had absolutely no thoughts about snagging a tennis ball during my IGA Stadium visit, but since it was there, well, it couldn’t hurt to try, right? Turns out, the bottom bar of the fence was quite low, but a few moments of persistent coaxing allowed me to squish the ball into an oblong shape — something that is obviously never possible with baseballs — and slide it under the fence to where I was crouched. Ta-da:

For the record, I didn’t keep the tennis ball. Instead, once I took a few photos, I placed it in the umbrella hole of a nearby picnic table so someone else could grab it.

Did you notice the walkway behind the chain-link gate in the background of my tennis ball photo? And the seating bowl in the distance? That’s IGA Stadium’s main court, and my next mission was to find my way in. Not only did I want to look around, but I also wanted to continue hunting for a historical plaque. The main stadium is directly over where Jarry Park Stadium’s home plate once sat. Even if I couldn’t find a plaque, the idea of standing where the Expos once played was too good to pass up.

Unfortunately, every gate on this side of the court was firmly locked, and after several more minutes of wandering, it became clear that entry wasn’t going to happen from this side. Somewhat discouraged, but committed to not giving up just yet, I left the complex and began a wider Walkaround. One of the spots I wanted to check out, given its role in MLB lore, was the swimming pool, which you can see here:

In the baseball days, the pool was situated well beyond the outfield fence in deep right field. There are some documented cases of tape-measure “splash hits” from powerful lefties. Perhaps most notably, all-time Pirates great Willie Stargell hit a 495-foot home run into the pool in the summer of ’69. (The towering shot wasn’t the longest of his career. Interestingly, his longest home run came in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, when he drilled a 535-foot shot into the third deck in 1978.) I thought about historical splash hits as I looked at the pool, and can’t deny smiling with the thought of lifeguards shouting “tabarnac!” and diving for cover as baseballs smacked into the water.

I quickly shifted splash hits out of my mind and refocused on seeing if I could find a way into the stadium. The construction seemed to be concentrated at the far end of the complex, so that’s where I headed next. And there, I found this:

Well, this was just about the best invitation to explore I could’ve found, right?

I again resumed my “walk with purpose” stride and soon found myself at the mouth of a tunnel that led to the main court:

Should I? Yes, I should!

This was the scene when I made it to the end of the tunnel …

… and, a moment later, here’s what I was looking at:

I spent a few minutes scouring the area to see if I could find a plaque, but alas, there was nothing. I later confirmed with someone at Tennis Canada that there is indeed no plaque that recognizes Jarry Park Stadium — its home plate position or otherwise — and that’s a shame. Think about who has played baseball on this site. Not only did all-time Expos greats, including Gary Carter and Rusty Staub, call Jarry Park Stadium home, but a significant list of the game’s greats from the 1970s would’ve played here as visitors when their National League teams came to town.

It was a thrill to get so close to the main court. Doing so had far exceeded the type of access I’d hoped to get at the stadium. Since no one seemed to mind my curious presence, I next set my sights on getting up into the seating bowl for a bird’s-eye view. After retracing my steps back up the tunnel, I continued walking until I found another open gate that provided access to several flights of metal stairs. A minute or two later, here was my view:

Workers were coming and going behind me, but for several minutes, I was the only person in the stadium’s seating bowl. And that was kinda cool.

Of course, I had to document the visit with a selfie:

After a few more minutes of just standing in that spot and taking in the overall sights and the minutiae of the tennis-oriented details around me, trepidation over my illegal parking job got the better of me, and I made a beeline back to where I’d left my vehicle. No ticket, yay! But I decided I’d better not push my luck and stay any longer, which brought my visit to an end. Before leaving, though, I had to capture the street sign that I think Expos fans will appreciate:

If you enjoyed this post, I have some other “exploration” posts that may interest you:

Here’s a story about the time I visited the abandoned Cooper Stadium, former home to the Triple-A Columbus Clippers.

And here’s my recap of visiting World War Memorial Stadium, a longtime MiLB park that now hosts NCAA baseball.