Ladies and gentlemen, the monstrosity that we know as the Olympic stadium or “the big O”, in Montreal, used to house our beloved Expos for almost 30 years (until their demise at the hands of Bud Selig, Loria, and D.C, but that's a story for another day). Normally when Montrealers think of Olympic stadium, all that comes to mind is the found year that was 1976, and afterwards nos amours playing baseball in that cavernous concrete dome that gets uglier as the days go by, but for the Montreal Impact it seems, who use the big O as a temporary winter home at the start of each season due to its retractable roof, statistically speaking, Olympic stadium is a successful place for the Impact to play.
Allow me to elaborate. Let’s go back in time until the year 2013, the Montreal Impact's second year in the MLS, in 2013 the Impact played 2 games at Olympic Stadium before moving to Stade Saputo for the spring, winning both games by a score of 2-1 against Toronto F.C and 1-0 against The New York Red Bulls, in 2014 the Impact played 3 games at Olympic Stadium, winning one against Seattle 2-0, but tying the other two games, but losing none at home at the big O. Well go to 2016 (skipping 2015 due to the CONCACAF games played at the time), the Impact won both of their season starting games at Olympic stadium 3-0 against New York Red Bulls and 2-0 to the Columbus Crew.
Do you see the pattern here? Yes many will say it is not fair to judge the team's success rate at Olympic stadium in the regular season because they only play a few games a year there, but numbers do not lie, and judging by this observation, one has to wonder what the Montreal Impact would be able to accomplish if they played regularly at Olympic stadium now with the core they now possess and with the experience the team has going forward.
For now, the Olympic stadium will stay as a temporary option for the Impact, as Joey Saputo wasted no time in building his team a new facility to play regularly back in 2012. Too bad, he should have given the Montreal Expos the same advice back in 2004 before they learned too little too late, that the big O is not a permanent solution.